


Please Don't Stop the Music

by cheeky_geek_m0nkey



Category: Pitch Perfect (Movies)
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-07-15
Updated: 2015-12-27
Packaged: 2018-04-09 10:48:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 38
Words: 37,030
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4345628
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cheeky_geek_m0nkey/pseuds/cheeky_geek_m0nkey
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A series of the song-based prompts I get based. ANGST LIES AHEAD.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Could you do a Bechloe to Charlie Puth's "Kiss me before I fucking lose my mind" :) — sent by anonymous
> 
> Do yourselves a favor before reading this fic and listen to the song  
> And someone, for the love of God, make a lady cover of it.

_I_  
Should have told  
You how I really feel  
A little in advance  
  
The grass is still wet where she sit in front of Chloe, fiddling with the rings on her hand. One is emerald, from her grandmother and twirling in silver around her knuckle. The other is a thin band, cheap metal, won from the 25 cent machines outside of the movie theater Chloe took her to in the middle of the night to avoid exam studying. She wonders how she can feel the path of Chloe’s pupils - assumes that just another one of Chloe’s magic powers, chalks it up to the endless list of pulls she has on her. Because she can almost see the looping lines that Chloe’s eyes draw on the curves of her hand, steady like her hand-writing and the feel of her hand on Beca’s shoulder when she needs to feel like she’s not floating. 

And she thinks this isn’t the right time. Like every time, no time is the right time. 

 _Then I_  
Would’ve had some time  
To go and work it out  
I think I’ve lost my chance  
  
Because last time, it felt so soon, like suddenly they were back in the showers - like somehow, they didn’t know each other at all, just fumbling strangers giggling their way through small talk. And Chloe said, “What’s on your mind, goof?” and Beca said, “Nothing, just…nothing. Not right now”.

  
 _For the last 3 years I just hid it so well_  
Hoping that you’d figure it out because I never could tell it  
Straight to your face  
  
And the time before that, she thought she’d said enough, because she held her hand to the inside of Chloe’s wrist, running her fingers along the lines there, and told her that she had the most beautiful soul of any person she ever knew. 

Or, rather, she said, “You’re weird, but I appreciate you,” which approximated to the same thing in Beca’s head.  

  
 _Never have I ever woken up in a cold hard sweat_  
From a dream wondering  
If you’d ever say “goodbye”  
If I didn’t say it first  
  
She thinks that she’s said it enough to herself, when the room is dark enough for her to outline the words into her pillow before the shadows of the street-lamp interrupted to remind her of the never-ceasing presence of the promise of goodbyes. 

When she’s just far enough asleep between worry-fears to think about the blue of Chloe’s eyes, or the freckles that Chloe doesn’t like to talk about on her shoulders, and she wonders if goodbyes are only permanent because she makes them so. If Chloe’s famous determination will fight the inevitability of their goodbye - and if Chloe even wants it to. 

  
 _I’m done_  
Playing these games  
I can’t believe what I’m about to say  
I won’t tell you goodbye  
With my love left behind  
Kiss me before I  
Fucking lose my  
Mind  
  
So, with the grass still wet where she sits in front of Chloe, her hands start to tremble. And Chloe, like so many times before, asks Beca if she’s okay. And Beca nods, though she feels it turning into a shake before she can stop it. 

She presses her lips together to stop the tears that are threatening to pour from her eyes, but she thinks that, maybe, there’s a piece of her doing that so that she knows she can’t say anything. 

And she thinks, this isn’t the right time. It’s killing her, like it always does, tugging at the edges of who she is and turning her inside out. But, like every time, no time is the right time. 

  
 _No_  
No more nights  
Drink until my loneliness  
Up till 2 AM  
  
No  
No more waiting  
Pacing round the bar  
Hoping that you might walk in

She thinks she’s said it enough to the people around her who will listen, downing another drink before turning to the person she knows she’s supposed to love and telling him that she just can’t. Feeling the water of the pool outside the Trebles’ house rippling around her fingers as she tries to explain, all the while looking at the French doors and waiting for Chloe to come out, to “meet her there” like she promised before Jesse caught her arm. Hearing Jesse say he understands, that he sees it too - in her, in Chloe. In the drunk nights she spent draped over the redhead instead of him. In the sober mornings.   
  
 _For the last 3 years I just hid it so well_  
Hoping that you’d figure it out because I never could tell it  
Straight to your face

And the time before the time before, she thought she said enough when she nudged Chloe’s shoulder with her nose, asking her to lift the arm for her to slip in. She whispered, “This is the most comfortable place I’ve ever been”. 

Or, rather, she said, “Mmm, you’re warm. Pass the popcorn” which approximated to the same thing in Beca’s head.   
  
 _Never have I ever woken up in a cold hard sweat_  
From a dream wondering  
If you’d ever say “goodbye”  
If I didn’t say it first  
  
She thinks she’s said it enough to herself when she’s crouched low in the shower, hugging her knees to her chest and feeling the water run over her. Because if she closes her eyes for long enough, she feels like she’s under a waterfall, and the sound is enough to drown out the passage of time, where the months are passing too fast, and the drafts are beginning to fill out. Pages upon pages of ways to say goodbye, because the question of Chloe’s determination isn’t what’s important. What’s important is how much less it would hurt - how saying goodbye now is like cutting the ties before they become steel ropes to drown her beneath a current that was always too strong for her anyway.  

  
 _I’m done_  
Playing these games  
I can’t believe what I’m about to say  
No I won’t tell you goodbye  
With my love left behind  
Kiss me before I  
Fucking lose my mind  
  
So, with the grass still wet where she sits in front of Chloe, pressing at her temples to stop the sobs from wracking through her chest, she tries to take a breath and ends with only a whiff of Chloe’s citrus and vanilla, remembering how she looked when she smiled and waved at Beca from the towel on the ground of her bedroom when she shaved last minute before the party tonight. Remembering her wink, and the series of winks, because Beca had somehow saved every single eye twitch sent to her over the course of the past four years. 

And there’s blood rushing in Beca’s ears, deafening the sounds around them, but she still hears Chloe saying her name, Chloe reaching out without any fear or hesitation and tugging at Beca with just enough force to break her down, to crack her ribcage and crumple her into Chloe’s lap. The tip of Chloe’s lime green thumbnail catches a tear before it falls, and she uses the water to trace the shape of Beca’s face. 

And she thinks, this isn’t the right time. Because she doesn’t think that this enormity of feelings is even possible for her tiny existence - doesn’t think she can deserve to feel anything more than the bare minimum, let alone the off-the-charts supernova that is crashing in her sternum. Like every time, no time is the right time. 

  
 _I’m done_  
Playing these games  
I can’t believe what I’m about to say  
Cause I would rather die  
Then feeling this inside  
Tricks played on my mind  
No I would rather die  
Then just tell you goodbye  
With my love left behind  
Kiss me before I  
Fucking lose my  
Mind

But Chloe Beale does not subscribe to this belief. 

Chloe Beale has ground herself firmly - digging her purple-painted toes deep enough to grow roots - into the idea that there is no time like the present. 

So, the grass is still wet where she sits with Beca’s head in her lap, and the move is awkward, and the angle is uncomfortable, but she bends her back, cranes her neck, and matches her lips up to Beca’s, thinking that the rush of no-air she feels in that second is like jumping from a cliff. Because it’s reckless, and breathless, and twists pockets into her gut, but it’s clean and clear and straight and  _crashing_ right where it’s supposed to. 


	2. Be My Baby

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: i mean, yeah, it would make a pretty good minific i think. (but then 'be my baby' by the ronettes would make some life-saving fluff- and could work either as a general song to each other OR like in the midst of baby-planning bliss) ok i really can't cope with angst if i don't have fluff to read immediately after i am WEAK

_So won’t you, please, be my be my baby_  
Be my little. baby my one and only baby  
Say you’ll be my darlin’, be my be my baby  
Be my baby now, my one and only baby  
Wha-oh-oh-oh.

She heard it first when Chloe was in the shower. Perched at the edge of the bed checking her phone and answering the text messages she chose to ignore throughout the day, (one of) Beca’s favorite nightly activities was tuning into the soap and steam of the bathroom and hear what song Chloe deemed worthy of closing out the day. Though Chloe wore her emotions on every inch of her skin, there was always an ounce that she pinched back, and Beca, who prided herself on reading Chloe like a mood ring, relied on Chloe’s nighttime showers to get a completely accurate idea of where her mind was at. 

So when the lyrics drifted out from the crack in the door, lilting and smoothing over the creases in their bedsheets, Beca found herself struggling to swallow, feeling that lump in throat that made way to a chasm through which her stomach dropped. People talk about pride swelling, puffing up with air, but in that moment Beca felt like the ground below her gave way completely, like her entire body had deflated in one gasp. 

Resting on the desk that was only used to balance student papers and unpaid bills was the pregnancy test that Beca took earlier that day, and on it, Beca knew, were the two red lines that would forever be burned into the back of her mind. When she pressed a hand to her still flat abdomen, she made the prediction that Chloe wouldn’t stop singing from this moment on. 

She was right, of course, but five months is a hell of a long time to hear the same song bouncing through the house over and over, and by the time Beca had to surrender to the verb “waddle”, the lyrics nearly pounded out her heartbeat. (Which was unfortunate, because the only thing that makes people take you even less seriously than a bulging belly on a tiny form was said person constantly humming a motown song from the ‘60s). 

“Are you going to stop with that any time soon?” Beca finally asked as Chloe was mindlessly singing through screwing the crib together. She was standing in the doorway, arms crossed, already irritated that she’d been forbidden to help from the start. 

“I don’t plan on it,” Chloe said easily, not bothering to glance up. To which Beca replied only with a groan and an impossibly adolescent-like trudge out of the room. 

And sure, the song didn’t leave Chloe’s head once during the five months, which  _did_ get annoying when Eminem was trying to break through her headphones and push her to run another mile, but she reveled in the fact that in the secret, quiet, solitary moments of Beca’s life, she sang the song too, bouncing around while cutting up fruit or tapping her hands on her stomach to the tune. Because her voice lilted in different ways than Chloe’s, tilting and twisting to stretch out notes Chloe wouldn’t have thought to, and despite her constant replays of the song, when Beca sang it, it always seemed knew. 

They were out at the mall - Beca’s “all-time, totes fav place” - looking for various horrifying contraptions that were deemed completely necessary for when the baby came, with Chloe’s arm linked onto Beca’s. Weaving in and out of aisles filled in pastels and stuffed animals, Chloe was singing the song quietly, almost maintaining a hum. She was halfway through the third verse when Beca stopped suddenly, her eyes wide. 

“Shit, Chlo, stop.”

She was always one for dramatics, particularly when it came to something that Chloe  _knew_ Beca hated, so when Chloe giggled and started to try to walk again, she was surprised that Beca didn’t follow. 

“No, I’m serious, Chlo, stop,” she said again, this time with more clarity and intensity and a touch of breathlessness. Chloe was holding a stuffed duck, a pack of bibs, and a pacifer (which, of course, was totally what they came to the store for….), but within half a second they were all on the ground, as Chloe rushed to Beca, worried. 

“What is it? What’s going on? Does it hurt? Oh my god,” Chloe’d already knelt down nervously, but when she held out her hand to touch Beca’s stomach, Beca swatted her away. She’d existed for five months under the over-paranoid, anxious, protective watch of Chloe, and the leash she was being kept on was short enough. Generally, she had two rules: no one touch her stomach in public, and no one freak out unnecessarily. 

“Chill, Chlo,” she said quickly, rolling her eyes. “It’s fine. I’m fine. Everything’s fine. It’s just…like…um…so, it kicked.” 

“ _WHAT?”_ Chloe, still kneeling, had let out a mix between a gasp and a squeal that sent the manager’s eyes shooting towards them, accompanied by several startled customers. Beca shushed her, looking around with a polite smile and pulling Chloe up by her elbows. 

“Okay, we’re in public here, Chlo,” Beca muttered, moving to keep walking again. Only, despite all her protectiveness, the grasp Chloe maintained on Beca’s arm was iron clad and circulation-cutting. 

“Our baby just kicked inside you, and you are just going to act like nothing happened?!” It came out almost as a growl, and Beca winced under the pressure of her wife’s nails. “This is my baby too Beca Beale-Mitchell, so turn that tush around and let me feel our baby kick so help me God…” 

Ducking any invisible force that this new Mama Bear Chloe might push Beca’s way, the pregnant woman turned around cautiously, gesturing towards her belly with frustration. Despite all her excitement (and terrifying anger), the bounce that Chloe took on when she pressed her hand to Beca’s stomach stilled after a few seconds. Her beam turned down a few levels and ended up being a frown. 

“I don’t…” she stuttered, pressing harder, “I don’t feel it.” 

Beca put her hand on Chloe’s tilting her head and leaning in with a knowing smirk. “Babe, that’s ‘cuz it’s not doing it.” 

Chloe slapped Beca’s head, nearly breaking up the sound of Beca’s cocky chuckles. When she settled down, she met Chloe’s still fiery eyes. “Dude, it’s cool. Just sing again.” 

“Wha-why?” 

“Becauuuuse,” Beca said like it was the most obvious thing in the world, “It likes your voice. And - kill me now - it  _really_ likes that goddamn song.” 

And if Chloe wasn’t preoccupied with what had become the most immediate response to a musical request in the history of the world, she would’ve grinned victoriously at Beca. Her time from then on out was mostly dedicated to excited squeaking, though. 


	3. Tenerife

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Beca/Chloe minific based off the song Tenerife Sea by Ed Sheeran — sent by anonymous

When Beca arrives, Chloe feels as though she is a thesaurus. The younger girl’s arms twist nervously over the sweater that Chloe knew she would bring “just in case”, and one million adjectives sweep through her mind to describe the way that Beca Mitchell looks in her dress. She closes in on “wonderful”, because it captures exactly how it felt like her chest was caving in in the best way. 

“ _I love your hair like that,”_ she had told Beca only a few days ago, twisting the curls around her finger and then them watching them fall, separating so a strand slipped to the dimples in Beca’s shoulders and a curl tumbled over the side of her neck. She wears it again like that tonight, thrown up in a bun that couldn’t be bothered to try, so it lets half the hair down to frame the whites of her shoulders.  

There are people greeting her at the door, beating Chloe to it because she’s too focused on her breathing and standing up straight. And they fluster Beca with their words, their gasps and their laughs, and Chloe thinks about just how far they’ve come - she thinks about the girl who will give a weak joke to a bad joke, her eyes wide to show she’s focused in on a story, and how far away she is from the girl who only knew how to widen her eyes in irony and sarcasm. Between mutters over exam grades and acapella competitions, Beca’s eyes find Chloe’s. There is a sparkle in them that comes with the perfect mix of boxed wine, a skipped dinner, and familiarity. She blinks once, and Chloe sees the nod. It makes her feel bigger than the entire room. It makes her glow. 

  
_Should this be the last thing I see  
I want you to know it’s enough for me  
‘Cause all that you are is all that I’ll ever need_  
  
She knows, dipping her finger around the rim of the red Solo cup, that Beca would never believe her. If she tells her all the words that are running through her mind, if she tries to explain the kind of satisfaction that Beca’s glance can give her, then Beca will back away with hands up, head shaking. “You’ve got the wrong girl,” she would say, “I can’t be enough. Like that. That’s you. That’s you. Not me.”   
  
Beca finally breaks away from the other girls, holding her hand out for Chloe to take. Chloe beams the word “beautiful” from every one of her goosebumped pores, because even the shadow Beca’s figure presses on her against the moonlight is more than Chloe can handle. She is light within a darkness, the kind of whiteness that comes from a reflection in her eyes. She doesn’t  _radiate_ , she  _illuminates_ , and within her eyes is a dark blue crest that reminds her of postcards of the Tenerife Sea.   
  
Behind them, Chloe hears a boy’s voice. He stretches her name, turning it into a call, and several follow after. And it should pierce Chloe’s chest - it should stab her gut - but she finds it dulling, fluffing around the edges under the twister of Beca’s breath, which is warm and wine-y and sweet. Chloe thinks, for one moment - in every moment - that Beca could ask her to do anything, to go anywhere, and she would.   
  
 _Should this be the last thing I see  
I want you to know it’s enough for me  
'Cause all that you are is all that I’ll ever need_  
  
I’m so in love, so in love  
So in love, so in love  
  
Chloe knows, running her finger over the veins in Beca’s wrist as they hold hands, that Beca would never believe her. If she tells her how her light is bright than Chloe’s could ever be - how it shocking and jolting and can wake someone up from a life of blissfully ignorant hiberation…If she tells her how her eyes are bluer than most oceans she’s seen, only they’re _bluer,_ somehow, like they’ve reached a new depth, then Beca will back away with hands up, head shaking. “No,” she would say, “Because everyone knows you are brightness and blue eyes. I am the dark and brooding. A thing you can never rely on.” 

  
_Should this be the last thing I see_  
I want you to know it’s enough for me  
'Cause all that you are is all that I’ll ever need  
  
But she says those things anyway, later that night when the people scatter, and the grass is wet, and they’ve stopped caring about the dampness of their clothes. “You look so wonderful in your dress,” she says, running her hand over the seam. “I love your hair like that.” 

And it isn’t enough - it isn’t nearly enough, and it can’t compare to the thesaurus Chloe had flipping in her head. But it doesn’t scare the other girl. It doesn’t make her freeze up, instead spreading a lazy smile over her face. 

And Chloe thinks, her hands drawing over Beca’s shoulder tattoo, that she  _knows_  her - Beca - she really  _knows_  her. 


	4. I Won't Tell A Soul

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Beca/Chloe "I won't tell a soul" by Charlie Puth — sent by anonymous

As they lay in bed, the room gets darker, the sunset streaming through the closed blinds and turning Beca’s skin an orange-pink. Chloe presses a kiss to Beca’s bare shoulder, feeling the girl’s shudder become a quiet, contented hum. She blows on the tattoo winding around Beca’s shoulder, tracing it with her breath. “I have a song for the set,” she whispers in the darkness, stirring Beca enough that the girl turns to face her. Her eyes are expectant, darker and deeper in the altered light of the room. “Ipod, please.” 

Beca smiles, reaching over the edge of the bed for Chloe’s iPod, and handing it to the other woman with a kiss on her nose. It takes a few moments, but Chloe finds the song, and her fingers run up Beca’s arm to the tune of the opening. Goosebumps follow her hand. 

>   
> Oh darling I  
> Know you’re taken  
> Something ‘bout this  
> Just don’t feel right  
> Every time  
> One of us, tries to leave here  
> Oh the other one  
> Holds on tight  
>  

_The first time it happens, Beca slept too soundly. She planned on only closing her eyes for a few minutes, just long enough for Chloe to fall asleep before she sneaked out of the room. They wouldn’t have a morning after, they wouldn’t have shared sleepy grins or flustered blushes or a joint trip to the school’s coffee shop. They weren’t allowed that much._

_Only, Chloe even snored to a rhythm, puffs of breath pressing a beat onto her forehead, and when she tried to slip out of the redhead’s grip, Chloe groaned and pulled her closer._

_She thought, in hindsight, that she didn’t try much to fight it. To fight any of it._

> Baby tonight  
> There’s so much love in between us  
> But you say you gotta get home  
> Stay here with me  
> I won’t tell a soul

_The second time it happened, they had a moment to breathe before Simple Minds blasted from her phone - which was lost under a pile of her clothes but still made a point to jolt her back to reality._

_Chloe found her hand when she groaned, pulling her back into bed when she moved to slip off of it. “Chlo, I can’t,” she said, her stomach tearing into two. She felt the muscles in her chest turn inside out. Chloe drew circles in her palm. There was a tired sadness to her eyes. “Just a few more minutes,” she asked, though it came out broken and begging, and Beca could only remember a few times she’d heard Chloe sound that desperate._

_When she sank back into the bed, Chloe’s chin fit right on her shoulder._

> You tell me someone
> 
> Waiting for ya
> 
> That you can’t do this anymore  
> But you kiss me again  
> So go ahead and  
> Draw the blinds and  
> Lock all the doors

_The third time it happened, it was dark. Beca had come into Chloe’s room, wringing her hands, and the bite of her lip immediately told Chloe what she was going to say._

_“I don’t want it to end,” Chloe said before Beca could say anything, grabbing Beca’s face with both hands and pulling her close. Beca had spent the entire walk to the dorm practicing her speech, but every line was lost inside the press of Chloe’s lips. She decided, instead, to just grunt, “Inside”, pushing Chloe to where it was safe and locking the door behind her. It was mid-afternoon, but Beca turned the lights off._

_She tried to tell herself that not seeing Chloe was enough punishment for her guilt._

> Oh if you want me
> 
> Like I want you  
> I won’t judge you  
> This could be our little secret  
> Our secret
> 
> So tell me if you’re ready
> 
> ‘Cause if no one knows then 
> 
> It ain’t really cheating

_They kept on like this, day after day, night after night, stealing hours when they could between boyfriends and rehearsals and classes - stealing glances when they couldn’t. Chloe saw the way it tore at Beca, the way the fire in her eyes flared in two directions: desire and guilt. She tried, with every touch of her hands to Beca’s hips, every touch to her lips, to lessen the guilt, to press it down or wipe it away or push it away with force, force, force._

_“It doesn’t feel wrong,” Chloe explained, running a finger over Beca’s collarbone, “This. Us. It can’t be wrong.”_

_“But it is,” Beca said simply, her voice deadened._

> Oh oh  
>   
> Baby tonight  
> There’s so much love in between us  
> You say you gotta get home  
> Stay here with me  
> I won’t tell a soul

Chloe locked her iPod, resting her lips on Beca’s shoulder again. Beca has a finger trailing down Chloe’s neck, but she presses her palm there instead, pulling Chloe’s head to her chest. She is shaking, though it’s barely perceptible, and when Chloe looks up, there are silent tears falling from her eyes. She runs her thumb down Beca’s nose, moving to wipe the tears. “I’m really sorry, Chlo,” she says, and it’s broken, it’s broke, it’s gone. Chloe moves, pulling the comforter up over her body. She kisses Beca’s forehead, and Beca wonders how the redhead can kiss by breathing. She thinks there’s in imprint where Chloe’s lips leave. 

“Just a little while longer,” Chloe says, “Please.” 

 

\--

 

Chloe Beale is light and sound. Her voice was something that smoothes the edges of Beca’s mood and eases the lines on her forehead. She’s illuminated music, and Beca lives off of the lightness, the noise, the breathe of the other woman. 

It knifes her somewhere in the break between her lungs, then, how much she prefers silent darkness in these stolen moments between classes and dinner dates.   

She decided, within seconds of kissing Chloe against her dorm door the first night they were together, that conversation was pain. The words always came out thick and molten, hard but filled with cracks for tears and breaks for smiles. In the moments between silence, their voices always seemed to be too loud, and she thinks it’s because it might crush the hazy dream. 

And quickly following that, when Chloe tore through the room to put her bag on her desk, moving back to press herself against Beca after switching the light switch on, Beca determined that the light hurt too. It outlined every one of Chloe’s features, burning it into the backs of Beca’s eyelids and the skin on her fingers, so that the memory of the moment wouldn’t leave her senses. 

So she sits now with Chloe pressed against her chest, recovering from the blow that was Chloe’s chloked, “just stay…please”, and she almost hates her. With the sun quickly setting and pressing tiny hills on Chloe’s bare back, she feels like a string tied around her stomach is being tugged at through her throat. It is hurt and pain and ecstasy and elation, and it floods through her, and she thinks that the feeling is so powerful that it  _can’t_ be light - it  _must_ be dark. 

She knows for certain that it’s evil. Evil because it can convince her to forget about the people who exist beyond the dorm door, or become deaf to her phone - vibrating a reminder for the dinner date she has…the dinner date she has with a person who will greet her with open arms and eager smiles and no conception of the barely visible bruise dotting Beca’s collarbone. 

At least inside these four walls, beneath these sheets, with the hot water of tears slipping down the crest of Beca’s shoulder and Chloe’s grasped impossibly tight, she thinks that Chloe is not illuminated music, but instead shadowed silence. This haze of something so strong, it must be bad. And dark. And secret. 

Chloe shivers, nuzzling more into her as the tears are subsiding and making way for overall exhaustion. When Beca presses her nose to the girl’s forehead, she smells sweat and citrus and Chloe’s shampoo. The phone alarm continues to whine, but she pulls Chloe tighter too. “Just for a little while,” she said, and the words, like before, break through the smoke of emotion to allow Beca to see clearly for a split second before she is back inside the scent and hold and air of Chloe. 

“I won’t tell a soul,” Chloe murmurs, peppering the edge of her shoulder with kisses. Beca hums, not responding. The sun finishes setting, and it’s then that she lets her thumb draw lines down Chloe’s spine. 

It is dark, and silent, and Beca thinks she can’t resist the power that these things have over her. That she won’t ever be able to at all. 

 


	5. Girl

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Your minifics are amazing, they're just, the best. Anyways could you write a bechloe fix based off of "girl" by jukebox the ghost? I think the song would beca's POV perfectly. — sent by anonymous

_So you say you’ve never been in love?_  
That you don’t even know what that means.  
You thought you did but now that it’s over you think,  
can’t even be half of the real thing  
  
There were others. Tired eyes and sleepy hair and t-shirts that were too tight or too big and never felt right against her fingers when she grabbed it like she was supposed to. They all had calloused hands or scratchy chins, and their voices didn’t sync with hers, but when they told her that they liked her - that they loved her - she nodded and said similar sentiments, because it was easier than pushing through the reason the words stuck on her tongue. 

And in the haze of the present, which is now the past, she really did believe that love was what she was holding in eager adolescent hands. Only it never felt right, never felt clean and heavy and hearty - more like a duty than a pleasure. 

There were others. 

But they weren’t like her. 

  
 __  
Girl, you’re gunna take me back to a time when I loved and I meant it  
Girl, you’re gunna save me,  
give me a chance, it’s worth taking  
Girl, you’re gunna take me back to a time when I loved and I meant it  
Girl, you’re gunna save me,  
gimme a chance, it’s worth taking, oh

She brings Beca back into the time when the words “I love you” didn’t feel like a line sticking out of a screenplay she was never cast in. Blue eyes and red hair shooting her back to when she held her mother’s hand, jumping over the steps of the Capitol building with red rocket popsicle sticking to her lips, looking up at the woman who made her to say with a goofy smile, “I love you, Mama”. Shooting her back to when she colored all through recess, finishing just in time to rush home from school and present her work to the beat up beagle at home with a simple, “I love you, Bubba”. 

She brings Beca back into the time when the words “I love you” were real, surging and bursting with something beyond responsibility. Filling the giver and the receiver with a sense of illumination and warmth.  

And Beca worries that Chloe doesn’t recognize the potential that lies in that power. She worries that Chloe cannot see that if she can be put back into that place, she can be saved completely. So she begs with her songs - her mixes and her smiles and the efforts she puts forward with these girls that she isn’t supposed to like being around - for Chloe to stay. To take a chance.   
  
  
 _And as time goes on and on, I can feel my heart growing colder and colder,_  
but then I see your face in the crowd, I think  
how could I be starting over?  
Cause when you meet someone new  
it all just takes over you  
and you think that you never really tried.  
Open your heart,  
open your mind.  
  
There were others, a combination of boyfriends and best friends and fathers and lifetimes that told her time and time again to step back because getting close only meant getting burned. So she moved far enough away from the fire to freeze, and then she let the blue eyes and red hair shoot her back. Warm her up. Revive the things she thought were dead in her, one of which being the ability to say the words “I love you” and mean it. 

There were others. 

But they weren’t her. 


	6. Jealous

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bechloe "Jealous" by labrinth — sent by anonymous

It was different. A different kind, at least. Because Chloe had felt jealousy before - could recognize the way it slipped and slid around, hissing and crawling and convincing her that the world was a sickly green that she could touch. Chloe had felt jealousy before, always geared towards a target that took the form of someone else. Someone she couldn’t be. 

And this was different. Very different. Because this was heavy, weighted and pressing down on her shoulders to take away her bounce. Barking silent screams of what could’ve been. And it wasn’t geared towards any one human - wasn’t geared towards him at all - because she knew that he deserved her, and she deserved him, and that they were good for each other. 

It was simply geared at the world that got to be closer to Beca than she ever could. 

 _I’m jealous of the rain_  
That falls upon your skin  
It’s closer than my hands have been  
I’m jealous of the rain  
I’m jealous of the wind  
That ripples through your clothes  
It’s closer than your shadow  
Oh, I’m jealous of the wind, cause

It was geared at the sidewalk that she walked on to get to whatever studio she was working at. It was geared at the edge of the coffee cup she sipped from, served by the hand of someone younger who was just like her but hadn’t made it yet. It was geared at the towel she used to dry off after her nighttime shower, and the blankets that curled around her when she tried to sleep. At the sun that peeked through the blinds and got the chance to see her when she woke up in the morning. 

  
 _I wished you the best of_  
All this world could give  
And I told you when you left me  
There’s nothing to forgive  
But I always thought you’d come back, tell me all you found was  
Heartbreak and misery  
It’s hard for me to say, I’m jealous of the way  
You’re happy without me

And Aubrey always said, “Isn’t it nice to know that she’s happy, at least? Don’t you love her enough to glad that she’s better than okay?” 

But that was because Aubrey didn’t get it - didn’t understand how different it was. Chloe wasn’t sad that Beca was happy, she was envious. Envious that Beca  _could_ be happy, was even remotely close to being happy, after saying goodbye in their caps and gowns all those months ago. 

Envious because Beca found out a way to smile, somehow, while she just drowned in pensivity, getting honked at at red lights because she lost herself in the thought of how it could be. Could have been.  

 _I’m jealous of the nights_  
That I don’t spend with you  
I’m wondering who you lay next to  
Oh, I’m jealous of the night  
I’m jealous of the love  
Love that was in here  
Gone for someone else to share  
Oh, I’m jealous of the love, cause…

It was geared not at the person who slept to next to her, but at the alarm clock that got to nudge her awake and see that little grunt of exasperation that crossed her features before she pulled herself up. It was geared not at the love she felt now, but at the love she used to feel, spilling out of the angst-outlined eyes that always curved into a smile when Chloe turned the corner. 

 _I wished you the best of_  
All this world could give  
And I told you when you left me  
There’s nothing to forgive  
But I always thought you’d come back, tell me all you found was  
Heartbreak and misery  
It’s hard for me to say, I’m jealous of the way  
You’re happy without me

And she had said, in third grade with two missing teeth and untamed red hair curling around in one big french braid that nearly reached her plaid skirt and neat Oxfords, that jealousy was, “A green, one-eyed monster, with a sharp tail and scaly skin…it’s one of the seven deadly sins”. 

But that was because she didn’t get it - didn’t understand how different it was. Chloe didn’t want to take away Beca’s happiness, she wanted to steal the happiness they had before. The smiles that came so easily in the past, and were thrown away without a second glance. And what was really wrong with that? If no one was using those memories, couldn’t she pop in and tear them out to bring into the Now? 

And how? 

 _As I sink in the sand_  
Watch you slip through my hands  
Oh, as I die here another day  
Cause all I do is cry behind this smile

_…_

_It’s hard for me to say, I’m jealous of the way  
You’re happy without me…_

It was different, because it didn’t fire her up or strengthen her bones - it broke her. Made her fall or sink or slip away - she wasn’t sure which. Only that it hurt, in the way a dull, chronic pain hurts. And that it would end - that pain - it would end, not in one slow turn of the wheel leading Chloe back to where she once was, but in one twist of the knife that was Beca’s smile, tearing her to pieces so that she forgot completely that a “once was” ever existed at all.


	7. Friends

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Can you write a Bechloe fic based on Ed Sheeran's song "Friends"? — sent by anonymous

_We’re not, no we’re not friends, nor have we ever been._  
We just try to keep those secrets in a lie,  
And if they find out, will it all go wrong?  
And Heaven knows, no one wants it to.

> She realizes it at a sleepover, when they decide to go outside in the snow and make snow angels at 3 in the morning. It is cold, and it’s biting at the tip of her nose, sinking into the thin material of Chloe’s sweatshirt, which still smells like vanilla and cinnamon.
> 
> There are snowflakes dotting her red eyelashes, making clumps stick together, and when she smiles, the freckle at the corner of her mouth turns up mischievously.
> 
> The snow sparkles against the moonlight, but so do her eyes, and Beca realizes she’s not cold at all, somehow.
> 
> And to Chloe’s humored, “What’re you lookin’ at?” she responds: 
> 
> “I’m glad you’re my friend.”

_So I could take the back road_   
_But your eyes will lead me straight back home._   
_And if you know me like I know you_   
_You should love me, you should know._

> And she tries to forget it, pushing the image of Chloe stretched out in the snow and giggling through the midnight blizzard out of her mind. But then she’s there in the kitchen with flour on her nose and oven mitts on, or waiting outside Beca’s class with two cups of coffee. And she realizes it all over again, a million and one times a million and one days in a row.

_Friends just sleep in another bed,  
_ _And friends don’t treat me like you do.  
_ _Well I know that there’s a limit to everything,  
_ _But my friends won’t love me like you.  
_ _No, my friends won’t love me like you._

> She thinks other people realize it too - but she finds that she doesn’t care. Because it feels good when she watches eyes travel down to where their hands are intertwined, or when the girls don’t question Beca’s presence in her bed most nights. It feels good the way drinking mountain dew at two in the morning feels good: jolting and sickening and sweet and wrong. It makes her high. 

_We’re not friends, we could be anything._  
If we try to keep those secrets safe.  
No one will find out if it all went wrong.  
They’ll never know what we’ve been through.

> Chloe realizes it when they’re staying up late working on choreography. Beca’s hair is in a messy bun, strand after strand falling out and framing the sharp angles on her face. They’ve been working for hours, starting soon after dinner and stretching the time into the morning, with songs on replay and bodies sore. 
> 
> Nighttime is Beca’s daytime, and she shines when she thinks, her brow furrowed enough to carve sculptures in rock. She feels it, then, in the glow of their joint concentration - that passion of making something with someone, that magic of hours flying by in seconds. It’s electric. 
> 
> And to Beca’s humored, “What’re you thinkin’?” she responds: 
> 
> “I couldn’t do this without you, Becs. Any of this. Thank you.” 

__  
So I could take the back road,  
But your eyes’ll lead me straight back home.  
And if you know me like I know you,  
You should love me, you should know.

> And she tries to run away from it - taking a cue from the woman herself and ignoring the way that her stomach curls when she hears Beca sing during rehearsal warm-ups, or the twitch of her fingers when Beca’s braiding through her hair. Because it’s nothing, nothing at all, this sense that if she doesn’t see Beca every hour on the hour, she might not be capable of existing at all. 
> 
> Only it’s everything, everything in the world. 

  
_Friends just sleep in another bed,_  
And friends don’t treat me like you do.  
Well I know that there’s a limit to everything,  
But my friends won’t love me like you.  
No, my friends won’t love me like you.

> She knows that other people notice, talks to some of them about it, because she’s not one to keep secrets, and Beca’s presence is a constant that’s slowly starting to take the air out of the spaces in her brain she saved for her sanity. They all agree it’s different - this way they have of falling asleep together, and only together, or the fact that Beca knows exactly what Chloe wants to order at restaurants or the type of lipgloss she stole in second grade. It’s different. She’s different. Beca’s different in response to her different, and it’s bigger, better, stronger than the normal. 

_Friends should sleep in other beds._  
And friends shouldn’t kiss me like you do.  
And I know that there’s a limit to everything.  
But my friends won’t love me like you.  
No, my friends won’t love me like you do.  
Oh, my friends will never love me like you.

> “Don’t leave,” is said when Beca tries to move into her own bed, pushing the covers back as if she could push away the pang in her chest at the same time. There’s a tapping from the inside of her stomach and a twitch of her legs that she can’t shake away, because songs are rolling through her head impossibly loudly and there seems to be no way to silence them but to tear herself from Chloe’s arms. 
> 
> “Please,” is said, when Beca moves to stand, and she realizes that the songs pounding her temples get softer when Chloe speaks, so she tries something new, because it’s late enough at night and dark enough in the room for her body to move without thinking. 
> 
> “Don’t wanna be friends anymore, Chlo,” is said when Beca pulls away from the kiss, because the world went silent for the longest second of her life, and it’s sharp and dull and easy and hard all at the same time. Chloe nods, agrees, because that’s what friends do, and then leans her head closer once more. 
> 
>  


	8. The One

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> oooohh bechloe and "the one" by kodaline pls — sent by anonymous

_Tell me,_  
Tell me that you want me,  
And I’ll be yours completely  
For better or for worse.  
  
She doesn’t wait for white dresses and floral arrangements. Instead she settles for white sheets and the moon streaming in through the blinds. She’s curled into Chloe’s side, reaching her hand up to dance across the redhead’s collarbone, and she lifts her head to see her. “Chlo,” she says, “Are you still asleep?”   
  
Her words trail over Chloe’s soft breath, bouncing when her chest rises and falls. She lets them dance over the tendrils of hair that have come out of Chloe’s bun, because even in this restful silence, she feels like they need to be said. 

 _I know,_  
We’ll have our disagreements,  
Be fighting for no reason.  
I wouldn’t change it for the world.  
  
There are the weights of bickers stuck to Beca’s temples, dragging down her hair, because their calendar is too busy and their tastes are too different, and every once in a while a bad day is just a bad day. But Chloe is warm where she is cold, light where she is dark, and she thinks that this is what everyone meant when they talk about fairy tales. 

 _  
‘Cause I knew  
The first day that I met you  
I was never gonna let you,  
Let you slip away._  
  
“When I first met you,” Beca says quietly, Chloe’s lightly sleeping hum responding, “I was so scared. Of who you were. Electric. Magnetic. It’s weird how you know to remember things. Like…like my brain knew that meeting you was going to change my life before time showed me. So it saved the way you looked that day, like…I can picture it. The way the dress brought out your eyes, and the way that I felt like the world was dropping out from under me. I knew before I  _knew_ , yunno? And I think you did too.” 

 _And I_  
Still remember feeling nervous  
Trying to find the words to  
Get you here today.  
  
“It was the same way that night that I sat outside your bedroom door. The night before we moved out. The words they–,” Beca stopped to chuckle. Her fingers were running over and over the freckle that Chloe had on her left shoulder. “Well, I’ve never been good with words, have I? But that night…I thought you were gonna go away. That nothing I could say would make a difference, so I said it all, and…Well, all I can say is that was the best Bellas sleepover ever…” 

She swears she can see Chloe’s sleeping lip twitch up in a smile. With a light finger, she traces that too. 

  
 _You make my heart feel like it’s summer_  
When the rain is pouring down.  
You make my whole world feel so right when it’s wrong.  
That’s how I know you are the one.  
That’s why I know you are the one  
  
She’s not sure how she got here, tangled in bedsheets with Chloe’s arms wrapped around her torso. It almost feels fake, and Beca’s fought guilt over it in the past. Because she doesn’t know a lot of things, but she knows she doesn’t deserve it. Glowering with storm clouds over her head because it was only way she knew how to breathe, she’s positive that she never did any good deed to deserve the sunshine that is Chloe Beale. Even when it rains, it’s a summer storm, passing by in minutes in hues of yellows and orange-greens to clear out the dirt and break up the heat. 

She thinks that this is not the life she deserves - this permanent summer in the world of her winter.

She thinks that she didn’t realize how much she liked the sun until she got to see it wake up with squinty eyes and morning breath. 

 _Life_  
It’s easy to be scared of.  
With you I am prepared for  
What is yet to come.  
  
“I don’t think it’s much of a secret that I’m a coward,” she says, “I’m…so scared. Of so many things. And I used to use that fear to create this…weird forcefield around me. And then…I dunno. You just…crashed through. And showed me how to be scared and not back down. To face it all despite the fear.” 

  
 _‘Cause our two_  
Hearts will make it easy  
Joining up the pieces  
Together making one.

“You make it easy, Chlo. To…just…to take it all. And I know you’re asleep,” she said with a sigh, “And I know I’m insane. I just…want you to know.”   
  
 _You make my heart feel like it’s summer_  
When the rain is pouring down  
You make my whole world feel so right when it’s wrong  
That’s how I know you are the one  
That’s why I know you are the one  
  
“You’re this warm, glowing thing where I’m all darkness, and, it’s…crazy, Chlo, how I’m here with you…it’s…I can’t…” she stops her path on Chloe’s freckle, “I can’t describe to you how you take every ounce of me that feels wrong and you make it feel right. It’s…God, I’m the worst.” 

She wipes at the edges of her eyes, sniffling. For a few seconds, she listens to the sound of Chloe breathing. 

  
 _When we are together you make me feel like my mind is free and my dreams are reachable, whoa_  
You know I never ever believed in love, I believed one day that you would come along and free me  
  
“I hate movies,” she continues, “And summer. And…well, a lot of things. Because they tend to promise things that never come. Like true love. Or lazy days. They tend to lie. And so I’ve been trying to hate that part of me that’s giving you this corny-ass speech. But…you love that part of me. And so, like an idiot, I’ve let it grow. Take me over. Hopeless romantic Beca Mitchell?” she gave a bitter laugh, “I’ll be that version of me if you want me to. It doesn’t seem so much like a lie, any of this - all of this…it doesn’t seem like anything but ridiculously and impossibly real.” 

 _You make my heart feel like it’s summer_  
When the rain is pouring down  
You make my whole world feel so right when it’s wrong  
  
Chloe’s eyes open slowly, hesitant, but Beca doesn’t flinch when they do, simply looking up to see the blue staring back at her, and she wonders how much Chloe heard. She thinks all of it. Because she’s grinning from ear to ear, and there’s a tear running down her cheek. Beca reaches up to grab it, pressing her thumb where she catches it. 

“Beca,” Chloe says softly, and it feels like a prayer. 

“Chloe,” Beca returns. 

 __  
That’s how I know you are the one  
That’s why I know you are the one  
That’s why I know you are the one  
That’s how I know you are the one

 _“_ Will you marry me?” 


	9. Falling in Love at a Coffee Shop

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A minific to the song 'falling in love at a coffee shop' by Landon pigg pleeeease — sent by anonymous

_I think that possibly, maybe I’m falling for you_  
Yes there’s a chance that I’ve fallen quite hard over you.  
I’ve seen the paths that your eyes wander down  
I want to come too

She doesn’t know when it happened. Can’t pinpoint the exact moment that it started. But she knows that when she’s away from the smell of citrus and vanilla, she feels like she can’t sit still. And she tries to find the exact moment that she started feeling that warmth spreading through her chest at the mention of Chloe’s name, determining that it was when they sat next to each other on the couch watching a documentary about the first serial killer because Chloe liked to watch things that made it hard for her to sleep. 

Or maybe it was when they ran through the sprinklers of their neighbor’s lawn, because Chloe had dragged her out on a walk “just to catch up” and when they passed the lawn she’d gotten completely soaked, mascara already running down her cheeks. 

 _I think that possibly, maybe I’m falling for you_  
No one understands me quite like you do  
Through all of the shadowy corners of me

Only, she knows that it started when she passed through the activities fair, a flittering in her stomach at the activity moving around her until her eyes latched onto blue and red and pink, and she felt like everything stilled. She knows that it started then, just a droplet until, over the course of a thousand sepia-toned memories it became a torrential downpour. 

 _I never knew just what it was about this old coffee shop_  
I love so much  
All of the while I never knew  
I never knew just what it was about this old coffee shop  
I love so much  
All of the while I never knew

She sits in the coffee shop, packed in the corner between the old books and dying plants, watching dust fairies twist in the sun rays through the window, and she thinks about when it started, and why, and how. But all she can see is the blue of Chloe’s eyes and the Saturday night stories she used to tell on Sunday mornings in this cafe, curled around a mug of tea and forgotten textbooks.

 _I think that possibly, maybe I’m falling for you_  
Yes there’s a chance that I’ve fallen quite hard over you.  
I’ve seen the waters that make your eyes shine  
Now I’m shining too

She determines that it was “falling” at all, but more like slowly wading into a pool until you realize that your head is under water. Because she feels Chloe in her hands, making her skin twitch and her cheeks flush and her eyes sparkle, and she wonders when she became capable of sparkling, twinkling, like Chloe Beale, but she knows it’s the same time she pressed a toe into that pool, catching Chloe’s eyes in shades of blue and red and pink. 

_Because oh because  
I’ve fallen quite hard over you_

_If I didn’t know you, I’d rather not know  
If I couldn’t have you, I’d rather be alone_

And she realizes that she wouldn’t have it any other way, because despite the terror that comes with identifying this tingling warmth in her chest, she can’t imagine a world wherein she didn’t feel hazy and dizzy and bright anymore. She knows that it existed once, but she knows that she doesn’t want to go back. Couldn’t. 

 _I never knew just what it was about this old coffee shop_  
I love so much  
All of the while I never knew  
I never knew just what it was about this old coffee shop  
I love so much  
All of the while, I never knew

She sits in the coffee shop, packed in the corner between the old books and dying plants, and she can see Chloe walk in, rushing through the doors with morning mist pressing down on her hair. She looks around the room hurriedly, stopping when she sees Beca in their Sunday morning spot. 

“I got your usual,” she says. 

“Thanks, Becs.” 

And everything is still except for the feeling in Beca’s chest, spreading down to her toes. She thinks there is music in the shop, but she can’t hear it. 

_All of the while, all of the while,  
it was you_

She doesn’t know when it happened, but she’s in love with Chloe Beale, or whatever word describes a place deeper than “in love”. 


	10. Georgia

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Fic prompt inspired by Georgia- vance joy? — sent by theresasnakelnmyboob

_She is something to behold_  
Elegant and bold  
She is electricity  
Running to my soul  
  
Chloe watches her when Beca doesn’t realize it. She is sitting in the passenger seat of the used Hyundai Tuscon, the smell of febreeze and cigarettes from the previous owner still permeating through the seats. Beca shifts to turn the radio up, her fingers bopping on the steering wheel as she bounces her head, and Chloe thinks that she is the sound of a car on the freeway at midnight. She is the static on the radio when they finally find a good song and the tightening of the seatbelt when they have to stop suddenly. She is the engine, the revving, the fuel, and the road. 

  
 _And I could easily lose my mind_  
The way you kiss me  
Will work each time  
Calling me to come back to bed  
Singing Georgia on my mind  
  
Chloe doesn’t know why it doesn’t happen to Beca, and wonders if the kiss was as sloppy and drunk as they made it out to be. Because she knows that she felt the hazy edges of alcohol sharpening the minute Beca pressed her lips to hers. She felt a burning that wasn’t the vodka coating her mouth, zeroing her senses until it was all so clear. And, as the camera panned out on the memory, it’s tinged with Georgia on My Mind playing in the background. 

  
 _Lips generous and warm_  
You build me up like steps  
Eyes innocent and wild  
Remind me what it’s like  
  
Beca pushes the grocery cart, jumping on when it’s caught enough speed and veering just in time to avoid crashing into the display of cereal boxes. Chloe thinks it hurts in the way a shot does - sharp, stinging, if only a moment before you see the way it builds you up. Her eyes flashing with mischief and the casual joy that comes from a weekend visit to the grocery store with your best friend like a bite of infection to protect you from the real thing. 

 _And I could easily lose my mind_  
The way you kiss me will work each time  
Pulling me back into the flames  
And I’m burning up again  
I’m burning up  
  
Only, she thinks that she might have caught the real thing already, and didn’t know it until the other woman branded her lips in tequila salt and borrowed lipgloss. She thinks that she’s been burning for a while now, singed at the seams, and the smile Beca has when they check out is like pouring gasoline on the fire. 

  
 _And I, I never understood what was at stake_  
I never thought your love was worth it’s weight  
Well now you’ve come and gone  
I finally worked it out  
I worked it out  
  
They buy enough groceries for three days, because that’s how long they have the house. A half dozen of eggs, a small carton of milk, a loaf of bread, and a gaggle of berries that is enough to hold them over. Beca opens the blueberry carton on the way out of the store, popping on in her mouth, and Chloe thinks that she wishes it could blur again. Because the clarity is nice, but the end is coming so soon that it can’t mean much. 

They wasted so much time drunk off the bliss of not knowing. 

 _I never should have told you_  
I never should have let you see inside  
Don’t want it troubling your mind  
Won’t you let it be  
  
She wants to put everything back in it’s place, taking the box of blueberries from Beca and stuffing it back in the bag because it’s the closest she can get to putting all of it back. When they drive again, she closes her eyes through the sporadic stops, because it’s the closest she can get to pretending it’s not there. If the window is down and the air conditioner is put on full blast, maybe the heat will drain away, and Chloe can let it be. She can let it be. 

  
 _And I could easily lose my mind_  
The way you kiss me will work each time  
Pulling me back into the flames  
And I’m burning up again, I’m burning up  
  
Only Beca sings when she drives, and she holds Chloe’s hand on the gear shift, squeezing when the songs hit their bridges. At the cemeteries, she holds her breath, and when they get out of the tunnel, she shouts a president name, glaring when Chloe doesn’t do the same. 

And Chloe thinks that the kiss wasn’t a shot, it was the removal of the anesthesia. It was what woke her up, though the pain was there and low and burning all along anyway. Too chronic, too sharp, to put back in it’s place, and constantly growing. 

 _And I, I never understood what was at stake_  
I never thought your love was worth it’s weight  
Well now you’ve come and gone  
I finally worked it out  
I worked it out

But they only have enough food for three days - two bags of groceries total between the two of them - and her car is parked in the driveway filled with moving boxes that spill into the Bellas’ living room. They only have enough for three days, while Chloe has enough for a lifetime, and not enough all at once, and she wonders if she’ll ever listen to music the same way. She thinks that she won’t. But at least she recognizes it now. 


	11. Pray

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bechloe + Pray by Kodaline — sent by anonymous

_How many nights do you lie dreaming_  
I’m counting the days since you went away  
When I lost my heart, life lost all meaning  
What I would give to see you again

Beca Mitchell doesn’t believe in God. She lived through a tilted world - one that was split and cracked at the seams - and God seemed too photoshopped for a place like that. Between sidewalk puddles that soaked her combat boots,  postcards of stepfamilies, and new prescriptions to be filled, she’d given up on the idea that there was a merciful big guy sitting in a Lazy-boy upstairs. 

She believes in music and the way it could tune itself to her heartbeat. In the power of eye-liner and a good eye-roll. In existentialism and the horror that is calculus. 

But she thinks that she could believe in God, if it meant she could twirl red hair around her finger, waggling an eyebrow and blushing at the wink of impossibly blue eyes one more time. 

Yeah. She thinks that she could, if it meant she could have that. If it meant she could sleep again, and stop the tally mark of days away that pounded against her temples. 

 _I’ll pray for you_  
Do you pray for me?  
I’ll pray for you

So she tries, just once, rolling over on her pillow so that her face looked up at the ceiling. There is a water stain in the corner, and she outlines it with her eyes.  _She was you. Essentially. Or, what made me think that people weren’t so wrong about you. And so, I guess I’m asking for you to bring her back. Somehow. People say you can do those things…You know, inexplicably cross paths again. That would…be nice._

 __  
And you slipped away from me without talking  
The look in your eye was stronger than this  
And I drink alone to stop me from weeping  
What’s left of my heart is forever yours  
Forever yours  
  
It doesn’t help. Which isn’t a surprise. So Beca stands up, taking practiced steps to the counter where a bottle glints off the streetlights that peek into the room. It stings, but not enough, because she thinks she might be more than a little numb to pain at this point. She thinks she might be more than a little used to what it feels like to get so close to the fire that you start to burn. She thinks she knows how good it feels until it doesn’t anymore. 

She thinks maybe numb is better, and takes another sip. 

  
 _I’ll pray for you  
Do you pray for me?  
I’ll pray for you_  
  
It’s enough that she convinces herself to try again, on the floor of her kitchen with the tile against her cheek. She knocks on the cabinet like it’s a door, hearing the sound echo throughout the room.  _Does she talk about me ever? Does she mention my name? I want to retract my earlier request, if that’s okay. Just…watch her. If you can. Make sure she doesn’t burn her forehead on her curling iron, and that she doesn’t accidentally drink nail polish remover instead of her glass of water. Things like that. Make sure she’s okay. And that she keeps being you. Or…making people think that they weren’t wrong about you. Thanks. Thank you. Thanks._


	12. Everything's Changed

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bechloe mini fic prompt! : AU based on the Everything Has Changed video by Taylor Swift — sent by anonymous

Chloe Beale practiced saying hello in her mirror, standing on the edge of her bed in her Cinderella nightgown before the sun woke up and twirling occasionally to watch the way it swirled around her ankles. Her house smelled like fruit and cups of coffee, and her backpack had a 64 pack  _with_ the sharpener, so that all of the crayons stood stick-straight and sharp. They were organized according to shade, so that before she zipped up and waited at the curb for the bus, she could run her fingers over them and taste the rainbow on her hands. 

Beca Mitchell woke up in time to have two bowls of cereal, spilling the milk on the collar of her shirt but managing to stand on the stool long enough to pull her thermos of hot chocolate out of the microwave. Her hair was unbrushed, but she thought it made her look more like an explorer, or a rockstar, and she headbanged a few times in the mirror to add to the effect. Before she left, she kissed her mom on the cheek and grabbed the comics her grandpa discarded at the edge of the dinner table, rolling her eyes when they both shouted at her to pick up her backpack on the way out. 

And Chloe Beale liked the way that Beca Mitchell smelled, like her dad’s cup of coffee and fresh laundry detergent. So she sat next to her on the bus and read the comics over her shoulder, pointing to one that made her laugh particularly loud and explaining the joke that seemed to go over Beca’s head. 

And Beca Mitchell liked the way Chloe Beale talked, her lips twisting like she ate a sour candy while her eyes opened wide for emphasis. So she listened when Chloe explained, feeling like she’d met a princess for the first time. Feeling like there was a spotlight shining behind her, creating a halo around her hair and scattering dust fairies in the gleam. Feeling like she had some sort of duty to shield her from dragons even though she decorated cookies like she was a lady on TV and not like she was just given the amazing opportunity to play with frosting and sprinkles sans consequence. 

Chloe learned that Beca liked peanut butter and jelly, and Beca learned that Chloe preferred bologna and cheese. The redhead shared her gummy worms and the brunette shared her cupcake, but they took turns trying to build towers with their carrots on their knees.  

During music class, Beca played the guitar, because she only knew one song, but it was the one that her dad sang to her mom so “it has to be good”, and Chloe Beale liked the way that Beca Mitchell sounded when she fought against the chaos of the classroom with a scared voice and soft fingers. 

During gym, Chloe salutated the sun, because her mother knew yoga and Beca’s knees were skinned from last weeks batch of kickball, and Beca Mitchell liked the way that Chloe Beale closed her eyes tightly when she battled the force of gravity with her knock-knees. 

They snuck out of social studies, Beca’s hand sweaty in Chloe’s, to talk to lizards and build blanket forts. Beca wrote music while Chloe sewed her girls scout badge, and they both realized why their parents sometimes preferred silence over sound. 

Chloe Beale practiced saying hello in the mirror before the sun woke up. She twisted the front strand of her hair to curl perfectly, and there wasn’t a dot of stain on her white dress, which twirled around her knees when she spun. But when Beca pulled out the markers and started to draw on her face, she let herself become a monster, feeling the inked smudges of her fingerprints on the edges of desks. She discovered that she could feel more beautiful like that - marked in blacks and reds and blues with her tongue sticking out. “A ballerina monster,” Beca called her, rubbing her hands together and smiling in a way that showed the gap in her teeth, and Chloe thought it was the best compliment she could recieve. 

Beca Mitchell ate two bowls of cereal, spilling milk on her shirt because she couldn’t sit still. She bounced to the sound of music that beat somewhere in the back of her head, and the band-aids on her knees put grass stains on her shorts. But when Chloe pulled out the book and handed it to her, saying, “I like your voice. I like this book. And I’m too tired to read,” she discovered that she liked a different kind of music than she thought - the kind that was quiet and smelled like sunscreen and strawberries. 

They danced to that music later, with Chloe’s arms on Beca’s shoulders like her older brothers taught her. Beca donned a tie made out of a bunch of leaves sitting at the foot of the tree they sat under, and her hands twitched at Chloe’s sides. “I don’t think I’m very good at grown-up dancing,” she whispered at the end of the imaginary song, her hand pressed to Chloe’s ear. Chloe giggled, shrugging. 

“Maybe you’ll be better tomorrow,” she said, taking Beca’s hands and skipping out of the gym. “My mom always says, ‘All you learn from yesterday is that everything has changed’.” 

Chloe Beale left school with marker ink lining her fingernails and dirt on the bottom of her dress. She learned that she liked the way Beca Mitchell said, “Really?” with her hands twisted around the hem of her shirt and her brows furrowed. 

Beca Mitchell left school with a notebook full of songs she’d tried to sing to get herself to stay up past midnight and a head full of facts about lizards. She learned that she liked the way Chloe Beale said, “Totes,” with her eyes blazing and her smile wide, like Beca could do anything in the world and still impress her. 

And maybe she could, but she’d only learn that tomorrow. 


	13. Enchanted

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: enchanted by Taylor swift bechloe style — sent by anonymous

_There I was again tonight_  
 _Forcing laughter, faking smiles_  
 _Same old tired lonely place_  
  
She is accustomed to it all - the party cups and “ho heys” of a college campus on Saturday night. It is a language that she speaks fluently, coursing through conversation after conversation without realizing that she’s talking at all. And she sees that the others don’t notice just how lonely it is to be talking to everyone without once even hearing yourself. 

  
_Walls of insincerity,_   
_Shifting eyes and vacancy_   
_Vanished when I saw your face_

So when she sees Beca, she can see the shift from blurry to clear. Like fire burning the edges of fuzz that had started to grown around her mind.   
  
 _All I can say is it was enchanting to meet you_  
  
Or a spark, maybe - a flash of jumper cables against a battery. Because a fire implies some kind of slow burn, and this is too unsubtle for that. 

   
 _Your eyes whispered, “Have we met?”_  
 _Across the room your silhouette_  
 _Starts to make its way to me_  
 _The playful conversation starts_  
 _Counter all your quick remarks_  
 _Like passing notes in secrecy_

She can feel herself gravitate towards her without even trying, eyes latched onto Beca’s navy blue when she’s not paying enough attention. They’re close enough that their elbows touch, and Chloe jumps back. 

She likes the way that Beca speaks under her breath, how she eyes the room with her opinion clear on her face. She likes the way that Beca grins when she talks, like she’s really listening, jumping in here and there to twist Chloe’s words and wring them out. It feels like a secret.   
  
 _And it was enchanting to meet you_  
 _All I can say is I was enchanted to meet you_

And she dances. Yes, she dances. Because she can feel the music through the floor, bumping through every instance of broken haze.   
  
 _This night is sparkling, don’t you let it go_  
 _I’m wonderstruck, blushing all the way home_  
 _I’ll spend forever wondering if you knew_  
 _I was enchanted to meet you_  
  
She feels that pulsing thump all the way back to her dorm, bouncing slightly with a heartbeat that jumps at more than just the alcohol in her veins. Replaying every moment her eyes glued onto Beca’s, she can see it then. The way she almost cast a spell on Chloe.   
  
 _The lingering question kept me up_  
 _2 AM, who do you love?_  
 _I wonder ‘til I’m wide awake_  
 _And now I’m pacing back and forth_  
 _Wishing you were at my door_  
 _I’d open up and you would say, “Hey,_  
 _It was enchanting to meet you,_  
 _All I know is I was enchanted to meet you.”_  
  
The spell keeps her up at night, the back of her pillow growing hot with each time she tries to switch it over. Because she keeps seeing Beca by her door, by her bed, by her computer or huddled into the corner watching with those same knowing eyes. And she wants to pull her over, wants to ask her to show her the world that exists within those always thinking eyes. 

But she dances. Yes, she dances. Because she can feel the music through her chest, even now. 

  
 _This night is sparkling, don’t you let it go_  
 _I’m wonderstruck, blushing all the way home_  
 _I’ll spend forever wondering if you knew_  
 _This night is flawless, don’t you let it go_  
 _I’m wonderstruck, dancing around all alone_  
 _I’ll spend forever wondering if you knew_  
 _I was enchanted to meet you_  
  
It’s almost as if she’s turned on the lights suddenly - flipped open the blinds of her life and blinked to adjust to the light. Because while she didn’t realize it before, she was asleep. Asleep for hundreds of years before Beca wakes her up with side grins and winking eyes and a mind that knows more than it lets on. 

She wants to tell Beca that she knows about the spell. Knows about how Beca waved some wand of her DJ mixing fingers and now she’s dancing, yes she’s dancing, to the beat that won’t stop washing over her. 

  
 _This is me praying that_  
 _This was the very first page_  
 _Not where the story line ends_  
 _My thoughts will echo your name_  
 _Until I see you again_  
 _These are the words I held back_  
 _As I was leaving too soon_  
 _I was enchanted to meet you_  
  
But she’s afraid to say anything at all, because she doesn’t believe that happy endings come from love potions or waves of wands, and though she’s sure that they have a story to fulfill, she’s uncertain of whether it will be together or not. 

So she whispers them behind closed doors while trying to fit Beca’s name around her head in the right way. 

“You’re magic.

“You’re more.

“You’re pixie dust and princess charmings.

“Enchanting.” 

  
 _Please don’t be in love with someone else_  
 _Please don’t have somebody waiting on you_  
 _Please don’t be in love with someone else_  
 _Please don’t have somebody waiting on you_  
  
And she doesn’t realize that it becomes a sort of mantra for her. Repeated while she’s brushing her teeth or lying in bed, mindless like so many conversations had at Saturday night parties. It keeps her grounded. Sane. Ready. 

Ready to be the princess when Beca calls.

Ready for love’s true kiss. 

  
 _This night is sparkling, don’t you let it go_  
 _I’m wonderstruck, blushing all the way home_  
 _I’ll spend forever wondering if you knew_  
 _This night is flawless, don’t you let it go_  
 _I’m wonderstruck, dancing around all alone_  
 _I’ll spend forever wondering if you knew_  
 _I was enchanted to meet you_  
  
And she dances. Yes, she dances. Because every princess knows how to, and because Beca’s spell is unrelenting in it’s rhythm. 

But she sings too. 

She sings too. 


	14. Dreaming with a Broken Heart

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A bechloe prompt along the lines of "Dreaming with a broken heart" by John Mayer. Like Chloe leaves beca and beca is having a hard time — sent by anonymous

_When you’re dreaming with a broken heart_  
The waking up is the hardest part  
You roll outta bed and down on your knees  
And for a moment you can hardly breathe  
Wondering, “Was she really here?  
Is she standing in my room?”  
No she’s not, ‘cause she’s gone, gone, gone, gone, gone….  
  
She’s become afraid of the dark. Both the all-enveloping darkness of her room, open to only shadows of past memories, and that blackness behind her eyelids. Because inside the blank black, she dances. She sings. Beca sees her, in all that darkness, shining a sort of light. Outlined in the hallway lamp light is the memory of Chloe standing and watching her sleep before crawling in next to her. 

And it’s not the memory that hurts so much as it is the sharp stab that hits when Beca opens her eyes back to the light and finds no one there at all. 

  
 _When you’re dreaming with a broken heart_  
The giving up is the hardest part  
She takes you in with her crying eyes  
Then all at once you have to say goodbye  
Wondering, “Could you stay my love?  
Will you wake up by my side?”  
No she can’t, 'cause she’s gone, gone, gone, gone, gone….  
  
It’s within that darkness, that night filled with sleepless sleep, that she sees Chloe’s face before she says goodbye. The way her eyes were magnified by the lenses of tears, her cheeks red with the effort it took to push the words out. 

And she can hear, in that dreaming way of gargled water and muffled tones, herself yelling. Shouting. Then whispering, a cracked voice that says, “Are you really going to leave?

Can you really get yourself to leave?” 

 _Now do I have to fall asleep with roses in my hand?_  
Do I have to fall asleep with roses in my hand?  
Do I have to fall asleep with roses in my hand?  
Do I have to fall asleep with roses in my, roses in my hand?  
would you get them if I did?  
No you won’t, 'cause you’re gone, gone, gone, gone, gone….  
  
On the curb of some junior high school party, she was told that if you dream about someone, it means that they’re thinking about you. So she tries every night to face the darkness and the pain that comes back with the light, because if she can dream inside the right world of roses and “I love you anyway”s, then maybe Chloe will see it too. Maybe she will see it all in the clarity that Beca sees it, and maybe she will realize. 

And the darkness won’t be a way to numb the lightness anymore. 

_When you’re dreaming with a broken heart  
The waking up is the hardest part_

And maybe not. 

 


	15. Suffer

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hi 'tis I pohagp anon w a charlie puth request, listening to this song really gave me a bechloe vibe I even had to turned it on whilst typing this but anyway.. chloe is doing that thing she does to make beca jealous and she's been out late every night and is coming home barely dressed/in various states of undress and it's driving beca nuts and one day she's singing (Suffer- C.P.) to let out her frustrations and she doesn't realize Chloe had come home and Chloe 's decides to do something Chloe-y — sent by anonymous

It happened repeatedly. 

Yes, Chloe was notoriously a creature of habit. From waking up every morning at 6 am to run to having a nap from exactly 4 to 5 in the afternoon, she relied on routine to keep her whistling through the mornings. So when she started coming home late, Beca shouldn’t have been surprised that she was going to repeatedly come home late - night after night after night. Still, that didn’t mean like it  _didn’t_ bother her. 

Mostly because Beca knew  _exactly_ where Chloe was every night. Well, not exactly, but she knew exactly  _what_ Chloe was doing, because she came home with hair unbrushed, disheveled and enjoying the evil glint in her eyes. She would be singing - and, yes, Chloe Beale sang all the time, but there was a certain  _type_ of singing that every Bella regrettably knew to be  _that_ type of singing - her buttons done up unevenly, or her skirt tugged up slightly, and she would say hi to Beca in that cheery tone that implied she knew exactly what she was doing. 

Beca never got jealous easily, because her sense of competition always pushed her to rise to the occasion rather than mull around in envy. So while she couldn’t exactly write-off what she was feeling as  _non-_ jealousy, she knew there was something else stirring in her when Chloe came home with that sing-songy look of mischief. Some kind of unique torture that stirred in her gut. She assumed it was because knowing with such clarity what Chloe was doing only minutes prior brought images into her mind that would make any girl blush, and decided that if she needed to go any further along that trail of thought she’d…well, she’d cut it right off at the source. Sometimes thoughts needed to be kept private even to oneself. 

Only, when Beca repressed, she tended to unintentionally bring the things to the surface with her music. Whether in mixes or Bellas sets, almost everyone knew what she was feeling better than she knew herself, because they just had to press play to understand it. So when Chloe came home on her sixth night in a row and heard Beca in the kitchen singing Suffer, the lyrics trailing over the running faucet, she slipped into the kitchen silently and weighed her options.

_“I’m just a sucker  
For a cold hearted lover…” _

She could keep on with her routine. It wasn’t ideal, but it was enough to make Beca blush every time she came into the room, and it had the added benefit of much needed stress-relief at that. 

  
_“You make me suffer  
You make me suffer…” _

Or she could stop, because she saw that while it amused her to see Beca so bent out of shape, it did cause a strange sense of tension between them. And she did enjoy the particular _type_ of tension that was blossoming, but she preferred that things be comfortable with the one person she knew of to talk to when she needed it. 

  
_“Don’t keep me waiting  
You should come over…”_

Or she could continue to stand near the edge of the counter, tapping her fingers silently to the sound of Beca’s voice, which reared in her that desire to do the same thing every night, because it was working, it was working, and maybe she wouldn’t  _have_ to make a choice at all, because Beca would for her. 

  
_“Don’t make me suffer  
Don’t make me suffer…”_

But she didn’t do any of that, because what Beca wanted her to choose seemed obvious enough, her voice inching up and out with such clarity of emotion that Chloe was nearly hypnotized in her walk towards the sink. She put two hands on Beca’s hips, causing the music to stop completely before she leaned close to Beca’s ear and whispered, “Keep singing.” 

And while the music played between them, Chloe swayed Beca’s hips beneath her fingers, waiting until the end of the song to turn her around and press her lips against Beca’s, strong and sure and breathless. 

And by the silence that the kitchen was met with when they broke apart, Chloe was sure she put an end to Beca’s suffering. 

At least, for the time being. 


	16. Flashlight

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hi. I love your minifics, but I was wondering if you could do one on Bechloe at the end of pp2 they sing 'Flashlight'. Could you do like what went through their heads and what happened afterward? — sent by love-at-its-darkest-hour

She looked beautiful that night. Chloe couldn’t tell if it was the spotlight on her face or the blur that the crowd sent into her own vision, but Beca stood across from her, and Chloe felt like she was shining. Glowing. Radiant, somehow, as if every light on stage was using her as a source of energy. 

She thought of tomorrow - an overnight flight and a drive back to campus before packing up boxes and heading out for another future. She hated the uncertain-ness of it all, and how it all felt like a hazy gray against this impossible brightness. But she looked at Beca, and the words were on her lips, pressing against her inherent and hidden stage fright and pushing her to sing along. 

Because if she sang, her voice following the stream that Beca left when she moved forward, then she found that she knew where to go and what to be. If she sang, then she knew her exact mark on stage, and how to bend her arms to fit to sounds. If she sang, then she could see, walking down the path that Beca lit for her. 

So she sang. 

 _“I got all I need when I got you and I  
I look around me, and see a sweet life_  
 _I’m stuck in the dark but you’re my flashlight_  
You’re getting me, getting me, through the night  
Kick start my heart when you shine it in my eyes  
Can’t lie, it’s a sweet life  
Stuck in the dark but you’re my flashlight  
You’re getting me, getting me, through the night.”   
  
She looked beautiful that night. Beca couldn’t tell if it was the way the makeup pressed glitter onto her face or if the blush of performing softened her features, but Chloe stood across from her, and Beca felt like she was shining. Glowing. Radiant, somehow, as if the stage that lit up behind them was just responding in reflection to the impossible light that Chloe shot out.   
  
She thought of the shadows behind those lights, and the fact she wasn’t lying inside them anymore. It was comfortable in that darkness, because it was just cold enough to sleep, and no one bothered to bother you, but it never stopped raining, and Beca was tired of hating the sun. So she stepped behind Chloe, looking out into the crowd for a second before focusing again on the blue of the redhead’s eyes, and she walked in the trail of the spotlight, letting that blue light the way. And she sang. 

Because if she sang, she found herself comfortable in the light. If she sang, she found herself living off the warmth, and if she sang, then she could be okay with the way Chloe held her hand, even learning to feed off the energy she gave. If she sang then she could stage-smile and let it turn into real sparkles, ignoring the urge to run from a team and a family and a person whom she loved. 

And she sang. 

 __  
“I got all I need when I got you and I  
I look around me, and see a sweet life  
I’m stuck in the dark but you’re my flashlight  
You’re getting me, getting me, through the night  
Kick start my heart when you shine it in my eyes  
Can’t lie, it’s a sweet life  
Stuck in the dark but you’re my flashlight  
You’re getting me, getting me, through the night.”  
  
It takes the darkness of the space backstage for them to realize that they sang to each other, and with each other, and at each other. 

And when they realized this, they stopped singing. Because sometimes flashlights needed to be replaced with fireworks. 


	17. Don't Know Her Name

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: "don't know her name" by emblem3. Beca/Chloe one night stand. Chloe leaves in the morning — sent by anonymous

_Ended up in my place_  
Never told me her name   
When I woke up  
I was alone  
  
It didn’t feel important at the time to ask her name. Because she was all pink lips and red hair and blue eyes, and Beca could swear that she was glowing somehow from the inside out. From the way she burned when she was touched, she assumed there was something instantaneous about it all - like if she blinked, the girl lying next to her, over her, around her, would vanish somehow. 

So it didn’t feel important, in light of all that, to ask her name. Until she wakes up with only the dent of a pillow next to her to prove that it wasn’t a dream in the first place. 

 _I don’t understand what_  
Made her run away ‘cause  
I felt like JJ  
We share the same soul  
  
And Beca is in the habit of telling herself that she did something wrong. She’s in the habit of running through the course of past events and convincing herself that it wasn’t what it felt like it was in the moment. 

Only this is a thing she can’t deny the intensity of - it’s a feeling that she can’t assign blame to, and it’s a moment that she can’t look back at without feeling it all over again. 

  
 _I wish_  
I would’ve asked what she’s about  
But she snuck out the back   
When the sun came out  
  
So she ignores her predisposition to replay memories, choosing instead to hate herself for saying, “I think I love you” and “You shine, you know” instead of “What’s your name” and “Will you be here when I wake up”. 

   
 _Really wish that she had stayed  
Coulda’ never left the bed all day  
Oh, but I don’t even know her name  
Don’t even know her  
I-I don’t even know her name_  
  
She thinks, as she lies there stretching her arm out to the edge of the bed that the other woman slept on, that she shouldn’t be wasting her time on this. With this. With the memory of her running her fingers through Beca’s hair, and the with the taste of her still on Beca’s lips. She shouldn’t be wasting her time staying in bed all day, thinking about how much nicer it would be with another set of arms, because she didn’t even know her name. Doesn’t even know if she was real or not.   
  
 _Runnin’ down my street_  
Asking everybody  
And they all tell me I’m out of my mind  
Staring at the ceiling  
I can’t shake this feeling  
She forgot me  
And she’s doin’ alright   
  
It carries her through the weeks, and she can feel her friends getting annoyed by the way she talks about this mythical night like it was capable of standing out against the lackluster of every other night. She can feel the way they roll their eyes when she sees red hair walk into the bar they stop in at, and she can tell they’re sick of the questions she seems to be permanently asking. 

But she can’t help it because when she sees the exact shade of blue in a dress that’s crossing the street, she loses herself again in the prospect of who the girl  _might_ be, and what world she _might_ live in.   
  
 _Wish I told her what she meant to me_  
Coulda’ had more than a memory  
Oh, but I don’t even know her name  
Don’t even know her  
I-I don’t even know her name  
  
She’s never finished hating herself for the way that night went, even though she knows that if she went back, she would act the same. Not because she took her home, but because she said “Don’t stop” when she should’ve asked, “What’s your name” and “Good night” when she should’ve said “Don’t leave”. 

She thinks she shouldn’t waste so much time on this. 

She thinks she couldn’t even if she tried. 

She just wants a name. A name. To hold onto in the night. 


	18. Honey I'm Good

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Can you write a mini fic for the song honey , I'm good — sent by anonymous

_Nah nah honey, I’m good_  
I could have another but I probably should not  
I got somebody at home  
  
She can’t remember the last time she had to actively remember that there was a body on her couch at home, feet propped up on the coffee table and beer in hand. She thinks that maybe it was last weekend, or the weekend before that, because the redhead that’s dancing next to her loves a good party almost as much as she loves getting Beca drunk. 

Either way, it takes a series of thoughtful actions for her to pull herself away, and she refuses the next drink offered, because she knows what will happen if she has just a touch more help. 

  
 _It’s been a long night here, and a long night there_  
And these long long legs are damn near everywhere  
You look good, I will not lie  
But if you ask where I’m staying tonight  
I gotta be like oh, baby, no, baby, you got me all wrong, baby  
My baby’s already got all of my love  
  
She doesn’t think that Chloe really knows just how much it hurts her to step away. She doesn’t think that Chloe knows that she can see the way her face falls, and she doesn’t think Chloe can tell how forced her words are. She puts her hands up to back away, a physical barrier between the bodies so that she can at least ground herself in something that isn’t her legs and her hair and the blue of her eyes. 

Because, she reminds herself, she has someone at home, sitting on the couch with his feet propped up on the coffee table. She has someone at home, and she loves him too. She loves him too. 

 _So nah nah honey, I’m good_  
I could have another but I probably should not  
I got somebody at home,  
And if I stay I might not leave alone  
No, honey, I’m good  
I could have another but I probably should not  
I gotta bid you adieu  
To another I will stay true  
  
She never intended for it to be the way that it is. When she kissed Jesse in the room full of people, high off adrenaline and the feeling of accomplishment, she meant it. And she still does, only it’s different. Twisted and strange in the way that it’s faded into something comfortable but nonetheless important. 

What’s important, though, is that she still means it. And will mean it, no matter how the words taste different now on her tongue. So she reminds herself that he exists, and that she’s not that type of person - she’d promised to  _never_ be that person - and that this is just the alcohol and the feel of Chloe’s hands on her hips. 

She reminds herself that now is the time to say goodbye, at least until tomorrow, when the sun is out and she is less tempted to do things that the day would frown upon. 

  
 _Now better men, than me have failed_  
Drinking from that unholy grail  
I got her, and she got me  
And you’ve got that ass, but I kindly  
Gotta be like oh, baby, no, baby, you got me all wrong, baby  
My baby’s already got all of my love  
  
But it is so tempting, and it is so sweet, the way that Chloe feels on her. She’s sweating slightly, hair sticking to the corners of her temples, but she’s grinning like she knows every thing Beca is thinking. When she moves, Beca moves too, and there’s a rhythm there that is new and old all at the same time. 

And when Beca takes a deep breath, she breathes in Chloe’s scent, which makes her throat burn more when she has to say no. When she has to step back. When she has to remind herself that she’s got someone back home.   
  
 _So nah nah honey, I’m good_  
I could have another but I probably should not  
I got somebody at home,  
And if I stay I might not leave alone  
No, honey, I’m good  
I could have another but I probably should not  
I gotta bid you adieu  
To another I will stay true  
  
If she closes her eyes, in this instance, with the walls of the room throbbing in time to the music and the bodies all around her, she can pretend like none of it happened at all. She can pretend like she never felt a thing, and doesn’t feel a thing. Because the movie already ended - the story is already finished - and the prince has already come. 

And she’s happy. She’s happy. She’s happy. 

She has to remind herself that she’s happy. 

Because it’s true. Even if it’s strained and different and twisted in two. 

She has to remind herself that he exists and makes her happy. 

Because if she doesn’t - if she doesn’t  _actively_ remind herself - then she will do something, right here in the middle of this party with her hands on Chloe’s shoulders and her hips moving in time, that not even the sun can take back. 

  
 _Oh, I’m sure ya, sure ya will make somebody’s night_  
But, oh, I assure ya, assure ya, it sure as hell’s not mine  
  
And it’s unfair how she doesn’t want Chloe to go home with anyone else. It’s unfair how she scowls when Chloe walks away from her, or even veers her eyes in a different direction. 

It’s unfair, and she knows it, but the thought of her making someone else’s night with those eyes and that face and the grin that’s painted across it all….the thought is enough to make her stop dancing completely. 

 _Oh, no, honey, I’m good_  
I could have another but I probably should not  
I got somebody at home  
And if I stay I might not leave alone  
No, honey, I’m good  
I could have another but I probably should not  
I gotta bid you adieu  
To another I will stay true

Which is good, really, because the dancing needed to end. She needed to slow down, and to let the world catch up to her, because her heart is beating louder than the entire room. It is enough to remind herself that she’s got someone at home, feet propped up on the coffee table with a beer in hand. It’s is enough to remember to step back, and to say no. No matter how much she doesn’t want to. 


	19. Hold Back the River

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Can you do a mini fic based of Hold back the river by James bay — sent by http-hey

_Tried to keep you close to me,_  
But life got in between  
Tried to square not being there  
But think that I should’ve been  
  
She knows that Beca is just downstairs. She can hear her pencil tapping against the side of the desk. Still, she can help but feel like there are universes stretching between them, ever-growing further and further so that when Beca looks at her at the end of rehearsals or over a rushed dinner, there is nothing there but to-do lists and avoidance. 

 _Hold back the river, let me look in your eyes  
Hold back the river, so I  
Can stop for a minute and see where you hide  
Hold back the river, hold back_  
  
She wants to grab Beca. She wants to hold her by the shoulders, and she wants to tell her that she’s there. She’s  _breathing_ and  _being_ right next to her. She hasn’t gone away, even if Beca has. 

And she wants to ask why, but she knows that she can’t, so she’ll settle instead for quelling the desire to grab her and tell her - promise her, swear to her - that she’s there.  _Breathing_ and _being_ right next to her. 

  
 _Once upon a different life_  
We rode our bikes into the sky  
But now we’re caught against the tide  
Those distant days all flashing by  
  
There were days when Beca wouldn’t leave the side of her bed, slipped between the green sheets and the walls adorned in silly posters from freshman year. There were days when they could spend their time curled into the couch, yelling at the television screen until they realized the sun went down. 

There were days upon days where not one moment was spent outside of each other’s breath, and Chloe wants to know what happened, and why. Because those days are flying by with every press of the keyboard below her. 

 _Hold back the river, let me look in your eyes_  
Hold back the river, so I  
Can stop for a minute and be by your side  
Hold back the river, hold back  
  
She wants to help Beca. She hears her, trying on the phone to reach some kind of help, and she wants to creep down the steps, slip barefooted onto her bedsheets and share. She wants to pull back the curtain of whatever is hiding in Beca’s eyes, if only for a moment to relieve some of the weight. 

And she wants to ask why, but she knows she can’t, so she’ll settle instead for quelling the desire to help her by telling her - promising her, swearing to her - that she’s there.  _Breathing_ and  _being_ right next to her. 

 _Hold back the river, let me look in your eyes_  
Hold back the river, so I  
Can stop for a minute and see where you hide  
Hold back the river, hold back  
  
She wants to see Beca. She wants to hold back all the things that are holding them back and just look. Just breathe and be right next to her. 

And she wants to ask why, but she knows she can’t, so she’ll settle instead for quelling the desire to see her and tell her with her eyes - promise her, swear to her - that she’s there. She’s always been there. And she will always be there.   
  
 _Lonely water, lonely water, won’t you let us wander_  
Let us hold each other  
Lonely water, lonely water, won’t you let us wander  
Let us hold each other  
  
It’s only a few steps, each one of them creaking under her weight. It’s only a few steps to Beca’s room, and they’re steps that she’s taken time and time again. And she can take them now, walking into the room without saying a word to simply wrap her arms around Beca and tell her - promise her, swear to her - that she’s there. 

That it’s going to be okay. 

And that no one knows, really, which is what makes the whole not-knowing thing okay. 

 _  
Hold back the river, let me look in your eyes  
Hold back the river, so I  
Can stop for a minute and be by your side  
Hold back the river, hold back_  
  
But she knows she can’t, so instead, she settles for listening to the pencil tap the side of the desk and the keyboard keys click angrily. She settles for knowing there’s something there, clouding Beca’s eyes, and she settles for hoping, praying, that Beca will be able to ask her to _breathe_ and  _be_ right next to her. If only for a moment, if only a long time from now. 


	20. Teenage Dirtbag

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> If you're still doing prompts could you please do bechloe to Wheatus' Teenage Dirtbag? — sent by anonymous

_Her name is Noel_  
I have a dream about her  
She rings my bell  
I got gym class in half an hour  
Oh, how she rocks  
In Keds and tube socks  
But she doesn’t know who I am  
And she doesn’t give a damn about me  
  
She thinks about the girl in school who stands in the corner of the class and refuses to make eye contact. Hair done up in braids, she wears Keds and tube socks in gym class like everyone else, but there’s something different about the way she stands in them all - like she doesn’t care, and she never will. Which is something that Chloe finds both amazing and heart-breaking at the same time. 

 _‘Cause I’m just a teenage dirtbag baby_  
Yeah, I’m just a teenage dirtbag baby  
Listen to Iron Maiden maybe with me  
  
She stands with her friends in the line for lunch, but when she laughs she tries to steal a glance. Wearing a pink sweater and a button up skirt, she knows that she can slip well into the background. So she shouldn’t exactly blame Beca for not seeing her. For not noticing that when she’s not driving around with the lyrics to Spice Girls’ songs blasting out her windows, she listening to Iron Maiden, with occasional spices from the Rolling Stones and a bounce into the world of R Kelly. 

 _Her boyfriend’s a dick_  
And he brings a gun to school  
And he’d simply kick  
My ass if he knew the truth  
He lives on my block  
And he drives an IROC  
But he doesn’t know who I am  
And he doesn’t give a damn about me  
  
And she can’t exactly blame her boyfriend for not noticing either, because she might be that cheerleader that stares too much, but he’s that senior that’s stayed for too long - donning tattooes and headphones around his neck which Beca picked up on. 

She thinks that’s better, because if he noticed, he’d say something that would ruin the way Beca sometimes stared back. 

  
 _'Cause I’m just a teenage dirtbag, baby_  
Yeah, I’m just a teenage dirtbag, baby  
Listen to Iron Maiden maybe with me  
  
But she’ll never notice, Chloe thinks, because when Chloe’s not in class, she’s running Student Council, handing out ice cream treats to raise money for prom. She’s got collages of friends with too much makeup and red solo cups lining her walls, and when she goes to sit in the mall parking lot on the weekends, she sits in the trunk with her friends and rates the people walking by. 

So she can’t blame her for not realizing. Because she’s just a teenage girl, with teenage friends and teenage wants, and sometimes she listens to Iron Maiden with a side of the Rolling Stones and R Kelly, but that’s a small part of her - a miniscule part - so she can’t blame her for not realizing. 

 _Man, I feel like mold_  
It’s prom night and I am lonely  
Lo and behold  
She’s walking over to me  
This must be fake  
My lip starts to shake  
How does she know who I am?  
And why does she give a damn about me  
  
It hurts more on prom night, though, because all of her friends file into the limo with their dates after photos, and Chloe sits on the edge, smiling to the parents before saying goodbye. She would’ve thought Beca wouldn’t come, but she does, dressed in a navy blue that pales her skin and darkens her eyes. 

So when she walks up to Chloe, the redhead realizing that her cup of punch is suddenly slippery. And that her mouth is suddenly dry. Somewhere in her mind, though, she recognizes the need to talk about Iron Maiden, maybe. 

As a means - however small - of communicating that she might be more than a teenage dirtbag, clad in pink and fuzz and the squeals of her best friends. 

 _I’ve got two tickets to Iron Maiden, baby_  
Come with me Friday, don’t say “maybe”  
I’m just a teenage dirtbag, baby, like you  
  
And, despite her mouth’s frequent inability to form words, Chloe manages to present the option of two tickets she doesn’t quite have, and Beca’s eyes light up like she’s never seen Christmas morning before. 

But she leans in close after taking the proposal when the Spice Girls comes on, putting her lips near Chloe’s ear, to say, “But also, I love this song. Wanna dance?” 

Chloe says yes, yes, yes, because it’s the only word she knows in that moment, and because she likes the way Beca looks at her when she knows she’s seeing more about her. 


	21. Let It Go (Not Frozen)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> First of all your writing is absolutely stunning. In the sense that it draws you in and holds you captive, keeps you hanging on to each word like an addict getting his fix. Seriously, you're incredibly talented and for that I thank you, because you make my days brighter with your words. Secondly: would you maybe write a mini-fic for Bechloe based off of James Bay's song "Let It Go"? If you do, thanks a million! If not that's okay too! I'll keep being a loyal fan of everything you do! ❤️ — sent by ofwolvesandanchors

_From walking home and talking loads_  
To seeing shows in evening clothes with you  
From nervous touch and getting drunk  
To staying up and waking up with you  
  
Beca has never known anything this simple. She doesn’t have to think when she’s with Chloe, and she doesn’t have to censor. Time goes by without her having to goad it, and before she knows it, it’s three in the morning and she’s lying next to a redhead discussing the merits of romantic literature. 

She’s nervous, but it feels good, like there’s something to  _be_ nervous about, in place of the stale numbness of her drab life. And she thinks that she has never known anything this simple. This easy. 

 _But now we’re slipping at the edge_  
Holding something we don’t need  
All this delusion in our heads  
Is gonna bring us to our knees  
  
She recognizes, somewhere after the third or fourth night of sharing a bed with Chloe Beale, that they are playing a game that is more complex that she originally thought. Because while the role she acts comes naturally, the pretense is all wrong, and them holding tightly onto the platonic end of their relationship seems to be silly. Because she sees it stretched before her, in long legs and blue eyes and soft, sleeping hums: the inevitability that it will fall, somewhere down the line, just like she fell - straight into love with the friend with whom it was always so simply. So easy. 

  
 _So come on let it go_  
Just let it be  
Why don’t you be you  
And I’ll be me  
  
Everything that’s broke  
Leave it to the breeze  
Why don’t you be you  
And I’ll be me  
  
And I’ll be me  
  
So one of the nights that they fall asleep talking, Beca wakes up to Chloe’s arm wrapped around her, and she pokes the redhead awake. She nuzzles into her collarbone when Chloe’s eyes open, and she muffles her words. 

“I’m not afraid with you,” she says quickly, “To be me.” 

Chloe hums, picking up her hand and kissing the palm. “I’m not either,” she says, closing her eyes. But Beca feels like it’s not enough, so she moves to put her lips right above Chloe’s, her voice become a breath of hot air when she says, “So let’s just…”

“Let it go,” Chloe finishes. 

“Yeah,” Beca agrees, watching Chloe’s lips. “Let it go.” 

  
 _From throwing clothes across the floor_  
To teeth and claws and slamming doors at you  
If this is all we’re living for  
Why are we doing it, doing it, doing it anymore  
  
And it feels good - like rain after a drought or a meal after a hike - because it’s so expected. The prophecy is fulfilled, and it feels good, in that moment, to do exactly what Beca knew she was going to do. It feels good, in that moment, to breathe in tune to Chloe’s breath, to move in time with Chloe’s body. 

And she thinks, her hands moving over Chloe’s hips, that it’s so simple. So easy. Right now, with them, just two people, just two heart, in the darkness behind closed doors. 

  
 _I used to recognize myself_  
It’s funny how reflections change  
When we’re becoming something else  
I think it’s time to walk away  
  
Only she wakes up the next day to a text from Jesse, one that has a thousand emojis and an invitation to go get breakfast “his treat”. And when she slips out of the bed, she can see that the smear of her makeup matches the same black and blue dotting her neck. It makes her reflection distort somehow, so that she can’t recognize who she is. 

Chloe comes up from behind her, eyes half closed and humming. She wraps her arms around Beca’s neck, but Beca refuses to look away from their faces in the mirror. She can see what’s different, like it’s a glow in their aura that has visibly shifted, and she wonders if other people can too. 

She wonders if the color change she’s spotted is something that signifies success or regret, and whether the move she made was something that she should’ve walked away from. 

  
 _So come on let it go_  
Just let it be  
Why don’t you be you  
And I’ll be me  
  
Everything that’s broke  
Leave it to the breeze  
Why don’t you be you  
And I’ll be me  
  
And I’ll be me  
  
But Chloe kisses her temple, pulling her away so that she can meet her eyes. She presses their noses together with a feather light touch, and she smiles. 

“I’m still not afraid,” she says lightly, and it feels good to hear her voice again. So Beca closes her eyes, because if she’s hidden in the darkness of her own eyelids, then it all becomes easier to see. 

“Neither am I,” she catches herself saying. It sounds like a chant, or a promise, or a vow of sorts. It sounds like a breath. 

“So just…let it go,” Chloe says, and Beca listens, kissing her lightly without backing away. 

  
 _Trying to fit your hand inside of mine_  
When we know it just don’t belong  
There’s no force on earth  
Could make me feel right, no  
  
She visits Jesse within a half hour, wincing like he’s poked her sharply when he kisses her cheek. He sees it, the way she pulls away, and she notices the way his eyebrows furrow like he’s trying to figure out the ending to a movie before it happens. 

She realizes, then, how it’s not simple with him. Not easy. So she takes a breath, feeling it shake, and starts to rub uneasily at the neck that she’s covered carefully. 

“I have to tell you something,” she starts, though he knows - he always knows - how the movie is going to end already.   
  
 _Trying to push this problem up the hill_  
When it’s just too heavy to hold  
Think now’s the time to let it slide  
  
The quickness with which he forgives her is unfair. She wants to yell at him, but she knows it’s not her place. Because he just takes it, accepting the story and the excuses when all she wants him to do is fight back. 

The waitress comes by halfway through. Beca’s napkin is torn into tiny pieces, and Jesse’s drink is untouched. They sit there for an hour, discussing, but all Beca wants to do is slip away. 

All Jesse wants to do is let it go. 

 __  
So come on let it go  
Just let it be  
Why don’t you be you  
And I’ll be me  
  
Everything that’s broke  
Leave it to the breeze  
Let the ashes fall  
Forget about me  
  
She leaves the diner after he does, giving him a five minute headstart and checking her phone in the interim. The text she reads says, “Love you”. Somehow, it’s what she needs. When the next one reads, “Can’t wait to see you,” she actually smiles. 

“Fearless,” she says when she sees Chloe again - the carride having been entirely too long. “That’s what they call the way you make me feel.” 

“Yeah,” Chloe says in response, reaching her hand up to Beca’s collar. 

“Like someone who can just….” 

“Let it go,” Chloe finishes, nodding. “I get it.” 

 _Come on let it go_  
Just let it be  
Why don’t you be you  
And I’ll be me  
  
And I’ll be me

“I know,” Beca responds. She feels right in the redhead’s arms. “You get it. You always do.” And then, in a quieter voice, she looks down to her feet to say, “You get me.” 

But Chloe hears and pushes her chin up to look at her. “I do,” she says, moving to kiss her, “And I’m so grateful you let me.”  


	22. Let it Go

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> First of all your writing is absolutely stunning. In the sense that it draws you in and holds you captive, keeps you hanging on to each word like an addict getting his fix. Seriously, you're incredibly talented and for that I thank you, because you make my days brighter with your words. Secondly: would you maybe write a mini-fic for Bechloe based off of James Bay's song "Let It Go"? If you do, thanks a million! If not that's okay too! I'll keep being a loyal fan of everything you do! ❤️ — sent by ofwolvesandanchors

_From walking home and talking loads_  
To seeing shows in evening clothes with you  
From nervous touch and getting drunk  
To staying up and waking up with you  
  
Beca has never known anything this simple. She doesn’t have to think when she’s with Chloe, and she doesn’t have to censor. Time goes by without her having to goad it, and before she knows it, it’s three in the morning and she’s lying next to a redhead discussing the merits of romantic literature. 

She’s nervous, but it feels good, like there’s something to  _be_ nervous about, in place of the stale numbness of her drab life. And she thinks that she has never known anything this simple. This easy. 

 _But now we’re slipping at the edge_  
Holding something we don’t need  
All this delusion in our heads  
Is gonna bring us to our knees  
  
She recognizes, somewhere after the third or fourth night of sharing a bed with Chloe Beale, that they are playing a game that is more complex that she originally thought. Because while the role she acts comes naturally, the pretense is all wrong, and them holding tightly onto the platonic end of their relationship seems to be silly. Because she sees it stretched before her, in long legs and blue eyes and soft, sleeping hums: the inevitability that it will fall, somewhere down the line, just like she fell - straight into love with the friend with whom it was always so simply. So easy. 

  
 _So come on let it go_  
Just let it be  
Why don’t you be you  
And I’ll be me  
  
Everything that’s broke  
Leave it to the breeze  
Why don’t you be you  
And I’ll be me  
  
And I’ll be me  
  
So one of the nights that they fall asleep talking, Beca wakes up to Chloe’s arm wrapped around her, and she pokes the redhead awake. She nuzzles into her collarbone when Chloe’s eyes open, and she muffles her words. 

“I’m not afraid with you,” she says quickly, “To be me.” 

Chloe hums, picking up her hand and kissing the palm. “I’m not either,” she says, closing her eyes. But Beca feels like it’s not enough, so she moves to put her lips right above Chloe’s, her voice become a breath of hot air when she says, “So let’s just…”

“Let it go,” Chloe finishes. 

“Yeah,” Beca agrees, watching Chloe’s lips. “Let it go.” 

  
 _From throwing clothes across the floor_  
To teeth and claws and slamming doors at you  
If this is all we’re living for  
Why are we doing it, doing it, doing it anymore  
  
And it feels good - like rain after a drought or a meal after a hike - because it’s so expected. The prophecy is fulfilled, and it feels good, in that moment, to do exactly what Beca knew she was going to do. It feels good, in that moment, to breathe in tune to Chloe’s breath, to move in time with Chloe’s body. 

And she thinks, her hands moving over Chloe’s hips, that it’s so simple. So easy. Right now, with them, just two people, just two heart, in the darkness behind closed doors. 

  
 _I used to recognize myself_  
It’s funny how reflections change  
When we’re becoming something else  
I think it’s time to walk away  
  
Only she wakes up the next day to a text from Jesse, one that has a thousand emojis and an invitation to go get breakfast “his treat”. And when she slips out of the bed, she can see that the smear of her makeup matches the same black and blue dotting her neck. It makes her reflection distort somehow, so that she can’t recognize who she is. 

Chloe comes up from behind her, eyes half closed and humming. She wraps her arms around Beca’s neck, but Beca refuses to look away from their faces in the mirror. She can see what’s different, like it’s a glow in their aura that has visibly shifted, and she wonders if other people can too. 

She wonders if the color change she’s spotted is something that signifies success or regret, and whether the move she made was something that she should’ve walked away from. 

  
 _So come on let it go_  
Just let it be  
Why don’t you be you  
And I’ll be me  
  
Everything that’s broke  
Leave it to the breeze  
Why don’t you be you  
And I’ll be me  
  
And I’ll be me  
  
But Chloe kisses her temple, pulling her away so that she can meet her eyes. She presses their noses together with a feather light touch, and she smiles. 

“I’m still not afraid,” she says lightly, and it feels good to hear her voice again. So Beca closes her eyes, because if she’s hidden in the darkness of her own eyelids, then it all becomes easier to see. 

“Neither am I,” she catches herself saying. It sounds like a chant, or a promise, or a vow of sorts. It sounds like a breath. 

“So just…let it go,” Chloe says, and Beca listens, kissing her lightly without backing away. 

  
 _Trying to fit your hand inside of mine_  
When we know it just don’t belong  
There’s no force on earth  
Could make me feel right, no  
  
She visits Jesse within a half hour, wincing like he’s poked her sharply when he kisses her cheek. He sees it, the way she pulls away, and she notices the way his eyebrows furrow like he’s trying to figure out the ending to a movie before it happens. 

She realizes, then, how it’s not simple with him. Not easy. So she takes a breath, feeling it shake, and starts to rub uneasily at the neck that she’s covered carefully. 

“I have to tell you something,” she starts, though he knows - he always knows - how the movie is going to end already.   
  
 _Trying to push this problem up the hill_  
When it’s just too heavy to hold  
Think now’s the time to let it slide  
  
The quickness with which he forgives her is unfair. She wants to yell at him, but she knows it’s not her place. Because he just takes it, accepting the story and the excuses when all she wants him to do is fight back. 

The waitress comes by halfway through. Beca’s napkin is torn into tiny pieces, and Jesse’s drink is untouched. They sit there for an hour, discussing, but all Beca wants to do is slip away. 

All Jesse wants to do is let it go. 

 __  
So come on let it go  
Just let it be  
Why don’t you be you  
And I’ll be me  
  
Everything that’s broke  
Leave it to the breeze  
Let the ashes fall  
Forget about me  
  
She leaves the diner after he does, giving him a five minute headstart and checking her phone in the interim. The text she reads says, “Love you”. Somehow, it’s what she needs. When the next one reads, “Can’t wait to see you,” she actually smiles. 

“Fearless,” she says when she sees Chloe again - the carride having been entirely too long. “That’s what they call the way you make me feel.” 

“Yeah,” Chloe says in response, reaching her hand up to Beca’s collar. 

“Like someone who can just….” 

“Let it go,” Chloe finishes, nodding. “I get it.” 

 _Come on let it go_  
Just let it be  
Why don’t you be you  
And I’ll be me  
  
And I’ll be me

“I know,” Beca responds. She feels right in the redhead’s arms. “You get it. You always do.” And then, in a quieter voice, she looks down to her feet to say, “You get me.” 

But Chloe hears and pushes her chin up to look at her. “I do,” she says, moving to kiss her, “And I’m so grateful you let me.”  


	23. Everything

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> gaaaah fluffy bechloe fic based on Everything by Michael Bublé? YOU'RE AWESOME even if you don't do it :) <3 — sent by anonymous

_You’re a falling star, you’re the get away car._  
You’re the line in the sand when I go too far.  
You’re the swimming pool, on an August day.  
And you’re the perfect thing to say.  
  
Chloe watches Beca yell at the television in a way that she will vehemently deny if Chloe tries to recount it tomorrow. She watches the way her hair is thrown up into a haphazard bun, and how her oversized sweater pools around the arms that she’s frantically throwing around. She watches, her toes curled around the edge of the couch cushion, and she wonders what words she could use to describe Beca Mitchell and the impossible feeling she brings up within her.

 _And you play it coy but it’s kinda cute._  
Ah, when you smile at me you know exactly what you do.  
Baby don’t pretend that you don’t know it’s true.  
‘cause you can see it when I look at you.  
  
When the show is over, Beca cuddles into Chloe again, picking up the redhead’s arm and placing it on the small of her waist where it now draws lazy circles that occasionally make the small girl squirm and giggle. During a commercial for cough syrup, takes the hand that traces and wiggles the fingers. 

“Ugh, you  _so_ love me,” she says, closing her hand around Beca’s. Against her chest, she can feel Beca grinning, or fighting it by biting the inside of her cheek. “Which I  _guess_ means I love you too. If I have to.”

Beca slaps her lightly, but the grin she fought back is ever-present and beaming, turning the pink in her cheeks into something that lights up the entire living room.  

 _And in this crazy life, and through these crazy times_  
It’s you, it’s you, you make me sing.  
You’re every line, you’re every word, you’re everything.  
  
When the television turns off, she hums lightly to try to wake Beca up. It’s not a song, not really, just a string of words to a familiar melody that she knows the other girl would appreciate. And she watches the dream that crosses over Beca’s features, furrowing her brows and smoothing out again with light puffs of breath. 

She thinks that she would be the soundtrack to all of Beca’s dreams, if she could. 

 _You’re a carousel, you’re a wishing well,_  
And you light me up, when you ring my bell.  
You’re a mystery, you’re from outer space,  
You’re every minute of my everyday.  
  
“Beca,” she says quietly halfway through her song. “Sweetie, we’ve gotta get to bed.” 

Beca groans, resisting, but Chloe checks her phone again to see the time. On it, Beca poses for a picture, her head stuck in the hole of a touristy painting that looks like an astronaut in space. She’s smiling - a rarity to have saved to a camera - or, almost smiling, obstructed by the tongue that she sticks out at the face that’s poking through the other hole. Chloe’s making kissy faces at Beca, leaning her head as far into the cut-out as possible to reach her. 

She wishes she could say it’s her favorite photo of them, but it’s just the flavor of the week. There are so many more that fill her albums, Beca semi-proudly declared them “one of  _those_ couples” only a few days ago. 

“Becs,” she tried again, “Let’s go, Babes.” 

  
 _And I can’t believe, uh that I’m your man,_  
And I get to kiss you baby just because I can.  
Whatever comes our way, ah we’ll see it through,  
And you know that’s what our love can do.  
  
When Beca finally opens her eyes, originally resisting by squeezing them as shut as possible, she frowns sleepily. 

“Couch,” she mumbles, but Chloe giggles, kissing her nose once before leaning down on the couch to reach her lips and deepening the kiss. 

She breaks away after a few breathless moments, holding Beca’s cheeks in her hands. “You got this,” she said, somewhat jokingly before throwing the blanket off of them. “Up, up, up.” 

 _And in this crazy life, and through these crazy times_  
It’s you, it’s you, you make me sing.  
You’re every line, you’re every word, you’re everything.  
You’re every song, and I sing along.  
'Cause you’re my everything.  
Yeah, yeah  
  
They do finally make it to bed, Beca slipping under the covers without even turning on the lights. So Chloe leans over her, nuzzling her chin into Beca’s shoulder blade to hit a nerve and startle her awake. 

“What the fuck, Chlo?” she mutters, and Chloe responds with a simple, “Teeth. Brush them.” 

So they join each other in the bathroom, and Chloe watches Beca grumpily turn on the faucet, her hair more messed up than earlier that night and barely held up by the rubber band keeping it in place. She’d discarded her pants, settling for just the shirt, and she taps her foot against the tile like she does every time she brushed her teeth. So Chloe, mouth equally as full of toothpaste, starts to sing gargled words to the beat, wiggling her hips until Beca’s frown turns into a smile. Once finished, Beca spits out the toothpaste and places a frothy kiss to Chloe’s cheek, leaving minty residue behind before blowing a raspberry into her neck. 

“You’re a nerd,” Chloe grunts, squirming at the tickle. 

“No, you are,” Beca says, tiptoeing out of the room and back into bed. Chloe doesn’t fight it, not one bit, because she thinks that she’ll be everything Beca wants her to be. Because Beca is everything she wants her to be, and it’s only fair. 


	24. Wasn't Expecting That

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt idea. Based off the song "wasn't expecting that" by Jamie Lawson from Beca's pov — sent by anonymous

_It was only a smile_  
 _But my heart it went wild_  
 _I wasn’t expecting that_  
 _Just a delicate kiss_  
 _Anyone could’ve missed_  
 _I wasn’t expecting that_  
  
She pinpoints the exact moment she realizes that Chloe is different. It is when she smiles at Beca, from across the stage, biting her lip to keep the enthusiasm down, like she was bubbling so much that she couldn’t be contained. Like she would hit the ceiling if she let herself. 

And it grows when they both sip from red solo cups, standing together at a party who’s music is too loud for them to talk. Chloe leans into her, speaking into her ear, and her lips brush over Beca’s jaw, sending a shiver down her spine. 

It was enough to change the course of her life, to twist the path she’d set out for herself, and she has to admit to herself, then, that any hope of a plan must be thrown out the window. 

  
 _Did I misread the sign?_  
 _Your hand slipped into mine_  
 _I wasn’t expecting that_  
 _You spent the night in my bed_  
 _You woke up and you said_  
 _“Well, I wasn’t expecting that!”_  
  
She grows comfortable with Chloe’s constant contact, because she notices that the rest of the world doesn’t ever question it, and because she realizes she doesn’t really want to. She feels good when Chloe touches her, like she doesn’t ever need a cup of coffee again, and so she leans into it. 

Leans into it enough, or too much, maybe, because when she wakes up one morning, she is wrapped around Chloe and smelling the strawberry peach of the redhead’s lotion on her skin. Chloe pulls her closer, humming like nothing of note had happened in the hours before - like the images weren’t flashing through Beca’s mind on repeat. 

“You’re a cuddler,” she says with her eyes still closed, “I wasn’t expecting that.” 

And it was enough to change the course of her life, to twist the path she’d set out for herself. She has to admit to herself, then, that any hope of escaping must be thrown out the window.   
  
 _I thought love wasn’t meant to last_  
 _I thought you were just passing through_  
 _If I ever get the nerve to ask_  
 _What did I get right to deserve somebody like you?_  
 _I wasn’t expecting that_  
  
She tells her while they sit in the courtyard between classes that she feels guilty sometimes. Because Chloe is  _Chloe_ , all bright lights and birds chirping, and Beca has caught her, somehow. She has tricked the redhead into letting herself be reigned in by someone who never knows what she’s doing - someone who despises mornings and the taste of green things, who still orders happy meals and prefers scowling over laughter most days. 

“I was expecting this,” is all she manages, though, because when she looks at Chloe she’s stunned by the overwhelming truth of it. This woman leaning against her, sunburned back against sunburned back, laughing at her terrible puns - she couldn’t ever have predicted this. 

  
 _It was only a word_  
 _It was almost misheard_  
 _I wasn’t expecting that_  
 _But it came without fear_  
 _A month turned into a year_  
 _I wasn’t expecting that_  
  
And when they’re on the swings that lie behind the school’s auditorium, feet trying to touch the sky, she giggles three words without thinking. A quick, “I love you” that makes Chloe skid to a stop, demanding she repeat herself. 

She claims word vomit, apologizing a few times, but the most surprising part of it all is how _right_ they seem on her tongue - after feeling so  _wrong_ so many times before with so many people. So she  _does_ say it again, over and over, throughout the weeks and the months, being unable to stop how sweet it seems against her lips or the way her heart speeds up when Chloe smiles in response. 

It’s enough to change the course of her life, to twist the path she’d set out for herself. She has to admit to herself, then, that this is real. Really, really real. 

 _Oh and isn’t it strange_  
 _How a life can be changed_  
 _In the flicker of the sweetest smile_  
 _We were married in spring_  
 _You know I wouldn’t change a thing_  
 _Without that innocent kiss_  
 _What a life I’d have missed_  
  
She thinks, as she stands on the altar holding Chloe’s hand, about all the times they’ve held each other hands. She thinks about that first time, at a party when the music was too loud to talk, with red solo cups in the other palms. And when she says, “Fuck yes, I do” and Chloe’s eyes bug in surprise before she looks cautiously out at the crowd, Beca sees the forever stretching between them. 

She thinks about that graze of lips against her cheek, and has the sudden urge, right there while dressed in white, to ask Chloe if it was on purpose. If she’d know that she would step into Beca’s life like a windstorm on the seas and blow everything off course. Twisting the path she’d set out for herself. 

She has to admit to herself, then, that whether it was purposeful or not, she will never stop being grateful. 

 _If you’d not took a chance_  
 _On a little romance_  
 _When I wasn’t expecting that_  
 _Time doesn’t take long_  
 _Three kids up and gone_  
 _I wasn’t expecting that_  
  
The years pass by without either of them noticing - the dates on the calendar giving way to labors and preschool interviews until finally they’re standing and hollering for the redheaded girl who fist-bumps when she gets her diploma, or demanding just one more photo be taken when their blue-eyed son goes to prom. Beca lives in a house filled with framed photographs and crafts made for Mother’s Day, and she has to say, over and over and over again, that she never expected this. 

Because Chloe had changed the course of her life. Twisted the path she’d set out for herself. And she admits, every single day, that she can’t imagine it any differently now. That she wouldn’t  _want_ to. 

  
_When the nurses they came_   
_Said, “It’s come back again”_   
_I wasn’t expecting that_   
_Then you closed your eyes_   
_You took my heart by surprise_   
_I wasn’t expecting that_

And Chloe is someone who loves surprises. Always had, always will. Beca hated them, though. So standing by Chloe’s bedside with the heart monitors beeping rapidly, she wants to lean in and say, “Surprises suck. I told you so.” Only, she thinks that’s not entirely appropriate, and when the floor falls out from under you, not even the pigheaded Beca is capable of a measly “I told you so”. 

So she squeezes Chloe’s hand, taking a shuddering breath and seeing in those eyes the excitement of all of the days. All the surprises. 

And when she tells Chloe that it’s okay, she doesn’t expect that the woman will listen, abiding by Beca’s permission and closing her eyes. 

All she can say, in that moment, loud enough for Chloe to hear her in whatever place she’s gone to, is, “Thank you” over and over and over again, because she changed the course of Beca’s life, twisting the path she set out for herself. She admits, then, that every single second is bigger than this singular moment, and she hopes Chloe, somewhere in the void, thinks so too. 


	25. Stay Stay Stay

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hi, you are the greatest! Your minifics are def one of my favorite things about this godforsaken website. Could you maybe please write a bechloe fic based off the song "Stay Stay Stay" by Taylor Swift? — sent by anonymous

_I’m pretty sure we almost broke up last night._  
 _I threw my phone across the room at you._  
 _I was expecting some dramatic turn-away,_  
 _But you stayed._  
  
When Beca shouts, her voice rises a few decibels, voice chords straining, which only makes her shout louder. And when Chloe’s mad, she starts to cry, not because she’s particularly hurt, but because the tears make their way into her arguments without permission. 

Their fights are never small - days of tension turn into weeks of cold shoulder before one of them blows up and demands reparations. This, of course, was no different - a short email leading offering a new job across the country, which resulted in a quiet “Oh, congratulations” that made way to quiet dinners and missed phone calls. 

Now there is a dent in the wall where Chloe threw her phone, and the sound of a car engine revving outside. Chloe winces when she hears it, as if the sound is more stabbing than the insults hurled masterfully throughout the night. She waits for the headlights to shine through the window as Beca backs out of the driveway, but instead there is the sound of the front door opening. Hesitant footsteps cross the debris left behind from the battle, and head upstairs without a word. 

 _This morning I said we should talk about it._  
 _‘Cause I read you should never leave a fight unresolved._  
 _That’s when you came in wearing a football helmet and said “okay, let’s talk.”_  
  
Chloe doesn’t want to talk about it the next morning, because Beca’s lying there next to her with a bare shoulder and a grin that’s begging to forget all about it. But she heard crying in the middle of the night, and she feels the echoes of past parents’ mistakes throbbing against her forehead, so she approaches it all carefully. 

“We should talk, Becs,” she says, not expecting Beca to leave the room without a word or a glance behind her. Standing in shocked and confused silence, Chloe listens to the sound of banging coming from the hall closet. When Beca reappears, she’s wearing Chloe’s brother’s old football helmet, which is two sizes too big. 

“I can’t protect your phone,” she says, “But I can protect my head. Let’s talk.”   
  
 _And I said,_  
 _Stay, stay, stay._  
 _I’ve been lovin’ you for quite some time, time, time._  
 _You think that it’s funny when I’m mad, mad, mad._  
 _But I think that it’s best if we both stay._  
  
And when she begins, she thinks that she’s going to say so much more. She has days and weeks piled into this moment where Beca is standing there listening, and she feels pages upon pages of script lining up before her eyes. 

 _It’s a great job opportunity,_ she thinks about saying. 

 _You deserve this,_ she preps herself. 

 _But I waited here for four extra years, and it’s not fair_ , she places on the edges of her lips. 

Instead, though, what comes out is simple. Monosyllabic. 

“Stay.”   
  
 _Before you, I’d only dated self-indulgent takers,_  
 _Who took all of their problems out on me._  
 _But you carry my groceries, and now I’m always laughin’._  
 _And I love you because you have given me no choice but to:_  
  
Because she sees like a flash in her eyes all the moments that Beca stood behind the group of girls at rehearsals, grinning as Chloe packed up her things so they could walk back together. She imagines the way Beca’s hands tap against the dashboard in the parking lot when they’re on a roadtrip to visit family, and Chloe  _demands_ they stop for a snack break. 

“Stay,” she says again. 

 _Stay, stay, stay._  
 _I’ve been lovin’ you for quite some time, time, time._  
 _You think that it’s funny when I’m mad, mad, mad._  
 _But I think that it’s best if we both stay, stay, stay, stay._  
  
“Not here,” she corrects herself, “No. Go where ever you need to go. Do whatever you need to do. But stay. With me. Jet set and dream big, and stay. Stay with me.”   
  
 _You took the time to memorize me:_  
 _My fears, my hopes, and dreams._  
 _I just like hangin’ out with you, all the time._  
 _All those times that you didn’t leave;_  
 _It’s been occurring to me I’d like to hang out with you, for my whole life._  
  
She sees all the futures of Beca Mitchell’s life laid out in front of her - the same branches of futures that used to instill panic in her throughout their years at Barden, because of the inevitability of Beca running off at 100 miles per hour towards her dream and leaving Chloe behind. She sees last night, and hears the sound of the front door opening again. And she realizes that Beca Mitchell has stayed. Time and time again, she has stayed. Master of the flight, she has chosen to fight against all of her instincts to plant herself next to Chloe.   
  
 _Stay._  
 _And I’ll be loving you for quite some time._  
 _No one else is going to love me, when I get mad, mad, mad._  
 _So I think that it’s best if we both stay, stay, stay, stay, stay, stay._  
  
“Because I don’t know if I can ever handle getting mad without you there to laugh at me. And I don’t know if I can ever eat a non-burnt grilled cheese again. Or sit through a movie without someone talking my ear off. You’re annoying as all hell, but Beca, I’m staying. I’m here, and I’ll go anywhere, but I need you to know that I’m staying. And I need you to too.”   
  
 _Stay, stay, stay._  
 _I’ve been lovin’ you for quite some time, time, time._  
 _You think that it’s funny when I’m mad, mad, mad._  
 _But I think that it’s best if we both stay, stay, stay, stay, stay, stay._  
  
When she finishes, she’s crying again, and it’s not because she’s angry. The tears are just as unpermitted, but there’s something about them at feels good. Cathartic, to say the least, and she finishes with a chuckle that breaks into a sob.   
  
Beca rushes to her, slipping the silly helmet off in the process. She says nothing when she wraps her arms around Chloe, letting the redhead crumble around her. 

“Of course I’m staying,” she mumbles quietly, “Chloe, that’s all I’ll ever do. I fuck up. A lot. But…God, Chlo, staying…staying is the easiest thing in the world with you.” 

_Stay, stay, stay._   
_I’ve been lovin’ you for quite some time, time, time._   
_You think that it’s funny when I’m mad, mad, mad._   
_But I think that it’s best if we both stay._


	26. Must Get Out

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> If you're game, could you do a Bechloe prompt based on the song "Must Get Out" by Maroon 5? — sent by anonymous

_I’ve been the needle and the thread_  
 _Weaving figure eights and circles round your head_  
 _I try to laugh but cry instead_  
 _Patiently wait to hear the words you’ve never said_  
  
She can see when Beca thinks about her, because there’s a glassy look to her eye and a way that the other girl bites her lip that is reserved specifically for thoughts about the redhead. And while they’re normally centered around certain harmonies to plan for certain sets, she’s seen the look more often as of lately, and she watches it creep up when they’re watching television or over the counter during a rushed brunch before class. 

She’s not sure why it hurts her so much, because she likes the idea of trolling through Beca’s mind and leaving fingerprints all over the ebbs and flows. But the look has altered slightly in it’s appearance, and it turns Chloe from proud to sad, because Beca looks almost as if she’s mourning something, and Chloe can’t help but think that she can’t mourn something that never began at all.

  
 _Fumbling through your dresser drawer forgot what I was looking for_  
 _Try to guide me in the right direction_  
 _Making use of all this time_  
 _Keeping everything inside_  
 _Close my eyes and listen to you cry_  
  
So she snoops - not because she wants to, but because Beca’s started coupling the look with quick glances away and uncomfortable avoidance of questions. She sneaks out too early in the mornings and comes back too late at night, which leaves plenty of time for Chloe to look through her drawers and log onto her computer (password: ThisRedHeadIsCute, because Beca never really had the heart to change it when Chloe hacked in), searching for any everything that Beca might be keeping from her. 

The fact that the search comes up empty is magnified when she hears Beca that night - sees her in her mind curled up against the headboard of her bed - calling Jesse for some semblance of help. Some indication that she’s better than all the others that have tried to go where she’s going. 

 _I’m lifting you up_  
 _I’m letting you down_  
 _I’m dancing til dawn_  
 _I’m fooling around_  
 _I’m not giving up_  
 _I’m making your love_  
 _This city’s made us crazy and we must get out_  
  
She wants to walk downstairs and take Beca’s hands in hers. She wants to look her in the eyes, and she wants to tell her just how life-changing the look in her eyes is. Just how revolutionary the music she makes is. She wants to tell her that she has a voice - not that it’s beautiful, or booming, or powerful beyond means, but just that it’s  _there._ Just like she is. 

Because she is there, even if Beca’s not. There to dance at three am when Beca can’t seem to crack a smile, and there to watch the news at seven am when Beca can’t seem to fall asleep. She’s there, and she’s not going to stop being there - through the jello shots and wine nights, the burnt lasagna and the cereal mornings. 

They’re going to leave each other, or, at the very least, they’re going to pop this bubble of all they’ve ever known, but they will not stop being there. Here. 

She wants to tell Beca that, but something holds her to her bed, looking at the boxes she’s already started packing and the setlist she’s got sketched out for Worlds. 

  
 _This is not goodbye she said_  
 _It is just time for me to rest my head_  
 _She does not walk she runs instead_  
 _Down these jagged streets and into my bed_  
  
So later, when the secret of the internship dissolves, and Beca isn’t afraid to be in her arms again, she whispers things in her ear when they both think that each other is sleeping. Their breaths are warm, and the air is buzzing, and it feels like the right time to say it. 

Which makes the next morning worse, Chloe thinks, because she can taste the words that were said too quietly on her lips, and Beca’s giving her a look that suggests that she heard them anyway. They pack the moving van, which is only headed for a block away - where Beca will be staying until the internship picks up a proper position for her somewhere in the company. And the goodbye is weak - an uncomfortable side hug, with Beca saying, “I’ll be over tonight for shit TV anyway” and brushing off the fact that Chloe’s got tears hiding behind her eyes. The redhead watches the van drive away, waving at it even though Beca can’t see behind the giant couch that’s blocking the back window. She watches Beca’s face in the side mirror, thinking that this will be the last time she sees her quite like that. 

Only, Beca’s back on the doorstep in five minutes, heaving and asking for a second to catch her breath. She says she tired, because she just ran five fucking miles, but also that she wants to sleep in Chloe’s bed tonight, wants to have someone close by, and Chloe nods, taking Beca in for the words that the other woman never really said but never really  _had_ to say. 

 _When I was_  
 _Fumbling through your dresser drawer forgot what I was looking for_  
 _Try to guide me in the right direction_  
 _Making use of all this time_  
 _Keeping everything inside_  
 _Close my eyes and listen to you cry_  
  
Chloe thinks, as she has her arms wrapped around Beca on the couch that night, about the time she snooped through her drawers - back when she didn’t know about the internship, and when Beca was afraid to look her in the eyes. She thinks that that reserved look hadn’t changed when Chloe found out, still rife with feelings of scared secrecy burning the edges. She realizes, then, that there were more secrets than the ones that she was saving on her computer. More fear. So she holds Beca tighter and tells her that it’s all going to be alright. It’s all going to be okay. 

She’s there. Here. And she isn’t going to leave, even if Beca does. 

  
 _There’s only so much I can do for you_  
 _After all of the things you put me through_  
  
Because she’s always been there. Here. And she’s never left. While that’s burned her more than a few times, she likes the way it feels. Because if Beca’s putting her through something, the thing is,  _Beca_ is putting her through something, and she wouldn’t give up that privilege for the world. 

  
_I’m not giving up_   
_I’m making your love_   
_This city’s made us crazy and we must get out_

“What if we never leave?” Beca asks that night, toes cold against Chloe’s calves. 

“We will,” Chloe promises, lightly kissing Beca’s shoulder and wondering if she noticed. 

“Okay,” Beca agrees easily, nuzzling into the pillow. “Hey, Chlo?” she broaches in the silence again. Chloe holds her tighter. 

“Yeah, Becs?”

“If I leave,” she starts, “Will you come with me?” 

“Of course,” she says, “Of course.” 


	27. Jenny

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> could you do a jenny by the studio killers version with bechloe...I think it could suit them quite well if you change the name and yep... — sent by anonymous

_Jenny, darling, you’re my best friend_  
But there’s a few things that you don’t know of  
Why I borrow your lipstick so often  
I’m using your shirt as a pillow case  
  
Chloe watches Beca when she mixes, sitting on the end of her bed and revelling in the special kind of silence that stretches between two people comfortable enough to let it sit. When she’s focused on a track, she bites her lip, and Chloe can see the kink in her neck forming from her hunched over form. 

And she realizes just how many things she wants to tell the girl across from her, if she wasn’t so afraid of breaking the silence. 

  
 _I wanna ruin our friendship_  
We should be lovers instead  
I don’t know how to say this  
‘Cause you’re really my dearest friend

Things like: I think I’m in love with the way you tap a rhythm on my palms without realizing it, and there’s a quirk in your chin that only pops up when your smile is sincere. 

Things like: I want to hold you, and hug you, and kiss you, because I wholeheartedly believe in the movement of giving you everything you deserve, and I want to start now. 

 _Jenny, darling, you’re my best friend_  
I’ve been doing bad things that you don’t know about  
Stealing your stuff now and then  
Nothing you’d miss but it means the world to me  
  
Things like: I think I’m in love with the smell of your favorite flannel shirt, and the look of your hair when you wear it down. Everytime you leave something in my room, I snatch it up, because it still has the kind of electricity that you emit, and when I wear your shirts in the mornings walking down the stairs, you smile at me with a wink in your eye, and it gives me more of a buzz than coffee.

 _I wanna ruin our friendship_  
We should be lovers instead  
I don’t know how to say this  
'Cause you’re really my dearest friend  
I wanna ruin our friendship  
I don’t know how to say this  
'Cause you’re really my dearest friend  
  
Things like: I’ve never had a friend that I trusted as much as I trust you, because when you look at me, there’s a kind of sincerity in your eyes that I don’t think I see you give to everyone. 

Things like: This is why I want to repay you in every diamond of a future I have - because I feel like I’m home with you, and I know this will crush that. But I think that when a house floods, at the least the foundation stays intact. 

  
 _Jenny take my hand_  
'Cause we are more than friends  
I will follow you until the end  
Jenny take my hand  
I cannot pretend  
Why I never like your new boyfriends  
  
She wonders if there’s a chance that Beca can read her mind when the other girl glances up from her work and smiles at her without prelude. It is a look she wants to keep in her back pocket for every rainy day of her life and all the days with sun, too. 

She wonders if Jesse knows just how lucky he is to have that next to him in his every second - to be  _allowed_ to have that next to him in his every second. Because while she’s never felt ill-will towards the person who might just be good enough for Beca Mitchell, she still can’t help but feel a slither of stone cold jealousy curl up her throat at the thought of that. 

So she wants to tell Beca things that will definitely break the silence between them. 

  
 _Oh, your love for them won’t last long_  
Forget those amigos  
Oh, your love for them won’t last long  
Forget those amigos  
Forget those amigos

Things like: I know you love him, and, at the same time, I know you love me. 

But I don’t think you know that.   
  
 _I wanna ruin our friendship_  
We should be lovers instead  
I don’t know how to say this  
'Cause you’re really my dearest friend  
  
Things like: I will wait, sitting at the head of my bed while you make mixes, for the time when you notice this too. Because the start of giving you all that you’ve given me lies in patience, and if that’s all I can provide right now, then that’s exactly what I’ll do. 

Things like: I know I’m in love with you. 

…

But instead she lets the silence drag on, because it’s got a rhythm and beat all to it’s own, and it’s just comfortable enough to sink into. For now. 


	28. Cold Coffee

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Fic based on "Cold Coffee" by Ed Sheeran? I don't mean to push you or whatever and idk, it's not that good a prompt so yeah. Rock on! — sent by anonymous

_She’s like cold coffee in the morning_  
 _I’m drunk off last nights whiskey and coke_  
 _She’ll make me shiver without warning_  
 _And make me laugh as if I’m in on the joke_  
  
Beca stands in the doorway of the kitchen, leaning on the wall, because Chloe’s microwaving yesterday’s coffee, and there’s a “bop bop bop” on her lips with a wiggle to her hips. She thinks that if she’s caught staring, she’ll say that she’s still drunk; there’s makeup smeared under her eyes, and her hair sits in a nest on her head. 

There are goosebumps spreading up her arm, and it happens just around the same time that the light streams through the window in a singular ray of dust and fairies, illuminating the edges of Chloe’s face. When the redhead catches her, she smirks, and Beca can’t help but feel that kind of nervous perfection that she’s come to realize is absolutely addicting. 

  
 _And you can stay with me forever_  
 _Or you could stay with me for now_  
  
So when she sits on the counter, stealing a sip of Chloe’s leftover coffee when she turns to pick up the toast, she thinks that this could be what it’s like for the rest of their forever. Toddling around the kitchen before the day properly begins, with quiet smirks because the house is too sleepy for any loud smiles to weave in.  
  
 _Tell me if I’m wrong_  
 _Tell me if I’m right_  
 _Tell me if you need a loving hand_  
 _To help you fall asleep tonight_  
 _Tell me if I know_  
 _Tell me if I do_  
 _Tell me how to fall in love the way you want me to_  
  
She says “You’re beautiful” in a way that she hopes all best friends do, and Chloe shrugs, shaking her head. 

She says “Good morning” in a way that she hopes all best friends do, with a hand itching to stretch out to Chloe’s shoulder and the promise that if it’s anything but good, there will be hell for the universe to pay. 

She says, “Did you sleep well?” in a way that she hopes all best friends do, covering up every inch of the desire to offer to sleep next to her next time, so no leftover coffee will be needed to wake up.   
  
 _I’ll wake with coffee in the morning_  
 _But she prefers two lumps of sugar and tea_  
 _Outside the day is up and calling_  
 _But I don’t have to be so, please go back to sleep_  
  
With class in less than thirty minutes, she should be rushing around the kitchen, grabbing a protein bar and running out, but there’s something about Chloe’s unhurried pace that makes the coffee taste better and the day seem lighter, so the threat of what’s to come doesn’t quite seem so….threatening. 

 _Stay with me forever_  
 _Or you could stay with me for now_  
  
“Stay here,” she hums, holding tightly onto Chloe’s arm as the redhead jokingly tries to slip away. “Hmmmm, we could sleep now, and deal with all the shit later.” 

And Chloe giggles, breaking the momentum of the haze they’d been in. She holds Beca’s head for a moment, sighing into it. “I wish,” she breathes. 

  
 _Tell me if I’m wrong_  
 _Tell me if I’m right_  
 _Tell me if you need a loving hand_  
 _To help you fall asleep tonight_  
 _Tell me if I know_  
 _Tell me if I do_  
 _Tell me how to fall in love the way you want me to_  
  
She says “So let’s do it”, in a way that holds both seriousness and mockery, because if Chloe said yes, there would be nothing stopping her from slipping under the blankets in the safety of her room with a self-proclaimed “cuddle-bunny” on the side. 

She says “You’re warm”, in a way that is mumbled just enough to be misheard, holding every ounce of desperation at length to hide the fact that she needs Chloe like a toddler needs a teddy bear. 

She says “I love this” in a way that makes it sound only slightly different, with a “you” placed somewhere in there - not quite, but close enough to be near satisfying those parts of Beca that want to say everything she knows she can’t say. 

  
 _‘Cause I love the way you wake me up_  
 _For goodness sake will my love not be enough?_  
  
And there’s something beautiful in the simple sleepiness of it all - something that makes Beca feel like together in this bubble of pre-sunrise silence they cannot be touched. It is as if, for a moment, she can fight away all the words she wants to say and the tingle in some place in her stomach, because, for a moment, this is bigger than feeling, beyond thought and butterflies - just them existing, with no concept of what might or might not be enough. 

  
_Tell me if I’m wrong_   
_Tell me if I’m right_   
_Tell me if you need a loving hand_   
_To help you fall asleep tonight_   
_Tell me if I know_   
_Tell me if I do_   
_Tell me how to fall in love the way you want me to_   
  


She says “I’ll do that” when Chloe complains about the dishwasher, although it sounds like she offering up the world, and she hopes that somewhere Chloe can hear the unspoken volunteering. 

She says “I hope you have a good day” when Chloe picks up her keys, every part of her body begging the redhead to just stay for a little while longer, while every part of her tone demands that the path of the universe follow her command. 

She says “You’re beautiful” when Chloe closes the front door, so much quieter than before in case the walls can hear, because it’s so unbearably true and she thinks if she says enough of these mixed prayers into the air of the house, they might find Chloe when she’s about to fall asleep, curling around her and promising to tuck her in so she doesn’t have to drink coffee tomorrow, or any day after that. 


	29. Stupidly

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> hi! i was trawling through youtube and i came across this song "stupidly" by mackenzie johnson and it's so beca and now i'm imagining beca singing this to chloe and i just- *whispers* please could you minific it? maybe? sorry :/ -nameless anon — sent by anonymous

Beca stands at the edge of Chloe’s room, biting the side of her mouth in the way that tells Chloe she’s considering the risks that lie ahead of taking a step inside. So she puts down her pen, looking up at Beca and meeting her eyes with a soft smile and an easy, “What’s up, Buttercup?” 

And Beca’s thought shatters into an equally as cheesy grin when she averts her eyes, following the path of the doorway up to the ceiling. “I…have…a thing,” she says slowly, the bite of her lip returning. “I have a thing I want to show you. Or. Play for you. Or something.” 

Chloe nods, shifting so that she’s resting on her elbows and facing Beca. “Okay, Goof, I don’t bite,” she says, “Get your butt over here and show me.” 

It’s enough. Because Beca slips from her position in the doorway to Chloe’s bed, easing onto it with a bent leg and her ankle as a cushion. She pats out a beat on the inside of her knee, taking a deep breath, and then starts to sing. 

_“It’s been two months now  
Of desperately trying to figure you out  
_ _And silently wishing that  
_ _Girl in your facebook picture was me  
_ _Oh I know_ _I should really stop thinking these things.”_

Over the scrawled lines of Chloe’s notes, Beca’s voice twists and falls. They paint pictures of nights spent awake looking at the green dot on the edge of her computer screen, accompanied by a picture of Beca with her lips pressed jokingly against her cheek, eyes aimed on her though Chloe’s gaze is straight for the camera. 

Nights that Beca spent refreshing the page, hoping that it would become easier to close the site if all she saw was Chloe’s name and the grey boxes of buffering. It never was. 

_“But you’ve got this way about you  
_ _That pulls me in closer but makes me a fool  
_ _I think I’m really losing my mind  
_ _One hopeless heart beat at a time  
_ _Oh, It’s safe to say that I’ve fallen for you  
_ _Oh, and I can’t wait ‘til you say that you’ve fallen too.”_

She shifts, pulling her legs into her so that her voice is crunched by the small space she leaves for her ribcage, and Chloe’s eyes follow the curve of her knees up to the way her jaw tightens and expands, fear lining the edges of what Beca is singing. 

She thinks that if anyone could change the world with a voice, it would be Beca, not because it’s something that can make people happy, but because it’s something that can make people blind, hypnotized to bend to her will, and she wonders if this is what mind-reading is like - the sound of Beca’s voice. 

Beca thinks that if anyone could change the world with a glance, it would be Chloe, because she feels the pressure of her eyes cross over her neck, and she thinks that she’s both frozen to her spot and burning at the edges. 

_“I’m sorry but I got lost in your eyes  
_ _Now I can’t see  
_ _I’ve fallen over my feet  
_ _Why must love make me such a fool?  
_ _I’m stupid. Stupidly in love with you.”_

There’s a power inside the blue that Chloe eyes beam out - that shade of swirling skies and postcard waters, but with a touch of sincerity that those picturesque scenes always lack. Beca tries to will away the feeling of them, because she knows she’s going to stumble over the lyrics of the song if she doesn’t try her best to focus on the words and only the words, but there’s something in the shade today that is admiring, and Beca’s not sure she’s seen that in anyone but Chloe Beale. 

_“I’m trying to clear my mind,  
_ _So you’re not the only thing that’s on it  
_ _Any given time of the day,  
_ _I’m staring into space in a place  
_ _Wondering what it would be like  
_ _If you were lying here next to me  
_ _‘Cuz loving you is like the night  
_ _‘Cuz you are only just a dream”_

And then Chloe reaches out, hesitantly, as if any sudden action could scare Beca away, to place a feather light touch on Beca’s knees and open up her position to create at Chloe-sized space to creep into. It makes Beca jump in between the lines of her song, but she calms herself before the next verse, extending her leg out for Chloe to ease over to, lying her head in Beca’s lap. 

It’s dumb, really, because now there’s no place for her eyes to go but straight to Chloe’s which are filling with tears that Beca can’t yet identify. 

_“I’m sorry but I got lost in your eyes  
_ _Now I can’t see  
_ _I’ve fallen over my feet  
_ _Why must love make me such a fool?  
_ _I’m stupid. Stupidly in love with you.”_

It’s not something she would do for anyone else - write and perform a personalized song to show someone just how she feels. It’s corny, cliched, and something straight out of the movies that Jesse has forced her to watch for so many years. But she thinks that there’s power in gesture, occasionally, and if Chloe deserves anything, it’s Beca going outside that place that she finds to be familiar and safe and smart. 

She’s been doing that since the day she met Chloe - being dumber than her past-self could ever bare to watch - but she doesn’t regret one touch of it, and she’s reminding herself that as she moves into the bridge. 

_“And the way that you sing, the way that you talk  
_ _Pretty much everything, I’m likely to love.  
_ _And when you’re wrong, I’ll still wanna hold your hand.  
_ _When the music stops  
_ _And your melody is the only thing I have.  
_ _I’m gonna play it in my head, over and over again.”_

Chloe doesn’t want to interrupt, or stop Beca’s rolling waves of confidence, but she can’t control her hand when it reaches up to run across the edge of Beca’s cheek. Because she’s not sure, but she thinks there’s a tear there, and at the very least there’s a harsh look of determination to get through this terrifying moment, so Chloe wants to find a way to communicate that it’s okay. That she’s still here, still listening, just like she’s always been and always will be. 

Beca closes her eyes when she reaches the last chorus, but she leans into Chloe’s touch. 

_“Oh, I’m sorry but I got lost got lost in your eyes  
_ _Now I can’t see  
_ _I’m falling over my feet.  
_ _Why must love make me such a fool?”_

It’s easier this way, blinded by darkness and the security of her eyelids. But that doesn’t mean she can’t still feel the intensity of Chloe’s gaze, so she opens her eyes again slowly, meeting with Chloe’s immediately. 

  
 _“I’m stupid,”_ she sings, her voice growing quieter, “ _Stupidly in love with you.”_

Then, it’s nothing more than a whisper. 

_“I’m stupid. Stupidly in love with you.”_

She takes one more breath, reaching a previously idle hand out to push a hair out of Chloe’s face, feeling the way it wakes her up. She shakes a little, stilled only by Chloe’s light touch to her hand. 

 _“I’m stupid,”_ she sighs, “I _am so stupidly in love with you.”_ With a voice that is cracking, breaking against her smooth song, she swallows and says, “And I hope you are too. I mean, I just…I really hope you are too.” 


	30. Don't Speak

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Helloooo , I have a prompt for you , the idea come to me Yesterday when I was reading fics with my playlist on (a.k.a my typical saturday) btw thats no the point , Could you do one based in the song "Don't speak" from " No Doubt"? Pleaseeee — sent by morerevenge

_You and me_

_We used to be together_  
Everyday together always   
I really feel   
That I’m losing my best friend   
I can’t believe  
This could be the end   
It looks as though you’re letting go   
And if it’s real   
Well I don’t want to know   
  


She thinks that she’s the one who is supposed to run. She’s the one that’s supposed to crawl inside of herself and slip away slowly, before anyone realizes she’s gone. But then there’s Chloe - bright and loud and always dancing - gradually becoming a shade of gray Beca never thought she’d see. 

She’s afraid - more than a little, actually. Because there is something powerful enough to change Chloe’s composition, and it’s stirring around the two of them so that when she sneaks into Chloe’s room at night, they run out of things to talk about. 

It looks like Chloe’s been crying. 

 __  
Don’t speak  
I know just what you’re saying  
So please stop explaining   
Don’t tell me cause it hurts   
Don’t speak   
I know what you’re thinking   
I don’t need your reasons   
Don’t tell me cause it hurts  
  
She doesn’t think she can hear, “This isn’t right, Beca.” 

She doesn’t think she can hear, “I am not right, Beca.” 

She doesn’t think she can hear, “You are not right, Beca.” 

But she thinks that this is what Chloe is saying. Slowly, surely, bit by bit in the hopes that Beca might not notice, she is saying these things. Trying her best to let Beca down as easily as she can, so that she can leave without explanation. 

  
 _Our memories_  
Well, they can be inviting   
But some are altogether   
Mighty frightening   
As we die, both you and I   
With my head in my hands   
I sit and cry   
  
There are moving boxes scattered around her room, and Chloe’s all but living within an empty room void of any life. They have three days left, and Beca sees it branch out before her. The “I’ll call you”s, the “This isn’t the end”s, and yet despite it all they’ll both just let it die, hanging limply in the air and letting it wither away. 

Because of fear, or, maybe, something worse. 

  
 _Don’t speak_  
I know just what you’re saying   
So please stop explaining  
Don’t tell me cause it hurts (no, no, no)   
Don’t speak   
I know what you’re thinking   
I don’t need your reasons   
Don’t tell me cause it hurts   
  
She doesn’t think she can hear, “We can’t do this, Beca.” 

She doesn’t think she can hear, “I can’t do this, Beca.”

She doesn’t think she can hear, “You can’t do this, Beca.” 

But she thinks this is what Chloe’s saying, because there’s been a shift somewhere along the lines of the end of this year. There’s been a transformation in the way Chloe looks at her, and she thinks that the redhead has finally realized how suffocating it can be to sit next to the person you love and not be able to tell them. 

She thinks that this scares her. And she understands. 

  
 _It’s all ending_  
I gotta stop pretending who we are…   
You and me I can see us dying…are we?   
  
“Things are different,” Beca says, still standing in the doorway of Chloe’s empty room. Chloe looks up, surprised, and Beca thinks she sees a unique brand of sadness there. 

“I’m sorry,” is all she says in response. 

 _Don’t speak_  
I know just what you’re saying   
So please stop explaining  
Don’t tell me cause it hurts (no, no, no)   
Don’t speak   
I know what you’re thinking   
I don’t need your reasons   
Don’t tell me cause it hurts   
Don’t tell me cause it hurts!   
I know what you’re saying   
So please stop explaining  
  
So Beca shakes her head, rushing across the room to crouch down beside Chloe, holding her cheeks in her hand. 

“You don’t get to say that,” she says, and she doesn’t realize she’s crying until that very moment. “Or any of this, really.” 

“Beca I–”

“Shh,” Beca says, shaking her head, “Let’s just…let me have this. For a second.” 

“Okay,” Chloe says. “Okay, me too.” 


	31. Truce

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Just thinking about you writing this prompt makes me cry, can you make a songfic, Truce By Twenty One Pilots and it's about them breaking up. 

_Now the night is coming to an end,_  
The sun will rise and we will try again.  
  
Beca watches the way the moon pours over Chloe’s outline, and how it seems like it’s pulsing and stagnating all at once. She thinks that this is what a fossil looks like, right before it fossilizes: full of fear, full of acceptance, full of being full. 

She reaches out to catch the moon droplets on Chloe’s cheek, and they jump to her thumb. 

“You are more,” Beca starts. The musicality in her voice is broken - an out of tune music box. “You are more than I ever could be.” 

“Don’t say–”

“No,” Beca interrupts.  _You are potential embodied. You are life engrained. You are the feeling of invincibility our parents tell us not to have._ She settles for: “You are more.” 

  
  
 _Stay alive, stay alive for me._  
You will die, but now your life is free,  
Take pride in what is sure to die.  
  
It is no less beautiful because it is over, she tells herself. Then, she repeats it, out loud. “We were good,” she says, “We were something special.” 

“Yeah,” Chloe chuckles, sadly, ending with sniffle. 

“The end doesn’t change the beginning, though,” she continues. “This was important. Is important. Even though it’s over.” 

“We were important,” Chloe adds, then, softer, with a hand tracing Beca’s palm, “Are important.” 

She wants to tell Chloe that she has one more request. One more command. She wants to ask that Chloe deteriorate. Here she is, after years and years, preserving the light that was Chloe. She thinks it’s well past the time to let Chloe start burning herself out. To let her deteriorate. 

Not because she wants her to end. But because she wants this to be beautiful - wants her to be beautiful -  _despite_ the end. 

 _I will fear the night again,_  
I hope I’m not my only friend.  
  
“I’m scared,” she admits to Chloe, finally letting the words be choked out. Chloe’s hand is there, then, catching the tears that fall. 

“I’m here,” Chloe counters. “Still.” 

“I know,” Beca says. “I know.” 

 __  
Stay alive, stay alive for me.  
You will die, but now your life is free,  
Take pride in what is sure to die.

 _“_ And I want you to stay here,” she continues, “But I want you to leave. I want you to burn. To fall. To hit your head on the ceiling. I want you to live, because I’ve kept you caged for so long.” 

“Beca, that’s not–”

“No it is,” Beca says. The words that were stuck behind her teeth are gnashed out. “They pour this chemical on the Declaration of Independence. Stuff it into a light-sensitive case, and only let certain people look at it at a time. Because they’re worried if they don’t, the fibers will break down.

“I don’t want to do that to you,” she pauses to take a breath, “I can’t.” 

“I’m not a historical document,” Chloe says, “I’m not a landmark or a plaque that gets checked out by tourists. I’m  _yours_.” 

“That’s not fair to the world, Chloe.” She steps back from the redhead, taking the hand that’s on her cheek and moving it to hold. “That’s not fair to you.” 

“I don’t want it to be fair.” 

Beca sighs. “Be bold,” she says, her fingers slipping out of Chloe’s. “Be bright. And dangerous. And dumb. Be invincible, precisely because you’re not. And know that this–” she uses the newly freed hand to gesture between them, “Was something special. Is something special.” 

Chloe nods. She respects everything Beca says, and it makes it almost harder. “Almost” because Beca thinks that “harder” is not a thing that is possible. 

“Stay alive,” she says, by way of goodbye. “By dying. Slowly and stupidly and proudly. For me.” 


	32. Suffer

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bechloe 'Suffer' by Charlie Puth — sent by anonymous

_Detonate-Detonator_  
 _Baby you, you blow my mind_  
 _You’ll tell me wait, wait on ya_  
 _But baby I can’t wait all night_  
 _I go through pictures inside my phone_  
 _Won’t stop tempting me_  
 _You know what I want_  
 _Wanna make, wanna make love_  
 _Girl I can’t lie_  
  
She realizes that this must be what it feels like to go crazy, cooped up in the corner of her living room with her hands balanced on her knees as she flips through the photos in her phone. The sun had set a few hours ago, but she was engrossed in the nonsense that various apps provided her with, and, as a result, she is now sitting in darkness, the only thing lighting up the room being her screen. 

She has (she counted) 67 photos of Beca so far in her photostream. Snapshots of snapchats sent, with goofy captions and tongues sticking out, bounce next to pictures of them together, with Beca covering her face with her hair or throwing out a middle finger. 

She realizes that this must be what it feels like to go crazy. 

Only, worse. Because scattered between those goofy photos are occasional shots of Beca when she wasn’t paying attention. Standing at the piano at rehearsals, tapping a pencil against the side of her head, with a tank top she borrowed from Chloe and a sports bra that hardly fit, there was a thin sheen of sweat on her face and just enough of a grin to imply that she knew exactly what Chloe was doing with her phone up and out. Then, stationed on her bed with a computer between her crossed legs, stretching in her third break of the night. Her hair was thrown up into a bun, but curls spiralled out of it, and her makeup was smudged, but just enough to make a smoky eye. The shirt strained against her improvised yoga. 

There was, of course, the one from when Chloe dragged Beca to her family’s summer house. She was stretched out under an umbrella, head propped up on her hand, and she was biting her lip to keep from smirking. There was something dark in her eyes, a kind of lust that Chloe always felt like she was imagining, though she knew exactly what kind of effect  _her_ swimsuit could have on people. 

And she takes an unsteady breath, shooting a text to the very girl that was itching at the corner of her mind.   
  
 _I’m just a sucker_  
 _For a cold hearted lover_  
 _You make me suffer_  
 _You make me suffer_  
 _Don’t keep me waiting_  
 _You should come over_  
 _Don’t make me suffer_  
 _Don’t make me suffer_  
  
 _-Come over_

There is nothing adorning the text - no emojis or funny sign-offs. Just basic, fundamental need painted more as a command than a request. 

- _Working,_ is the response she gets, but it’s immediate and Chloe can feel Beca’s blush beneath it. 

- _Can’t you do that here?_

- _Hardly. You’re a bit distracting._

It’s too much, really. This buzzing that has underlied their interactions since day one, taking years and years to build up to this point where nothing felt innocent at all anymore. Chloe thinks that the hem of all her shirts were now permanently twisted with her hands feeling the need to do  _something_ in response to this itch.   
  
 _So here we go, go again_  
 _It’s like I’m caught under your spell_  
 _You’re wearing black, black magic_  
 _Oh baby don’t wear nothing else_  
 _When I open up this door, don’t you play_  
 _Ain’t no other man going to make you feel the same_  
 _Wanna make, wanna make love_  
 _Girl I can’t lie_  
  
There are so many things she can say. Game-changers, sure, but also comments that are just slight enough for her to get away with without much of a paradigm shift. 

She settles for:

- _And if I beg? I’m not above it at this point._

_-You present an interesting proposition, m’lady._

Then, 

- _I’ll be there in five. But what’s the magic word?_

Chloe types it out, reading it once, then twice, and watching it blur with the amount of focus she pays it. She wants to be rid of this conversation so she can go back to the sixty-seven-plus she’s got set up in her photo app, because she knows there’s a picture of Beca in her Bella costume-fitting session, biting the crook of her finger and pouting in a pose meant to be silly for the camera. When she refocuses her eyes, the word feels like it holds more power than possible. 

- _Please._

  
 _I’m just a sucker_  
 _For a cold hearted lover_  
 _You make me suffer_  
 _You make me suffer_  
 _Don’t keep me waiting_  
 _You should come over_  
 _Don’t make me suffer_  
 _Don’t make me suffer_  
  
She thinks she should probably change. Or eat. Or something. Move around so as to break her mind away from the paths it’s going down. But she finds that she’d rather sit here and let the thoughts wander, let that feeling build even more until she burns. 

She hopes Beca’s wearing the navy blue shirt she stole from Amy, the one that slinks off her shoulder enough to reveal her collarbone. 

She hopes that when she comes over, she doesn’t knock on the door, but walks in comfortably like she always does, her fingers trailing across the wall until they dance across Chloe’s shoulders. 

She hopes a lot of things that she knows won’t happen, and that kind of painful burn that comes with those hopes has a sick sensation of pleasure attached to it. 

She never much considered herself a masochist until now. 

  
 _I hate when_  
 _You get your way_  
 _But we love you we love you baby_  
 _So please don’t ever change_  
 _You make me suffer baby_  
 _You oh_  
  
Sure enough, Beca is there in six minutes and forty five seconds, letting herself in without a knock and allowing herself to bounce on the couch three times before settling down, her head pillowed by Chloe’s thighs and her hand tapping a beat against her knee. 

“Missed you,” Chloe manages to get out, tugging at a piece of Beca’s hair in an effort to distract her fingers. 

“Evidently,” Beca chuckles, sighing. Chloe pulls her legs back more, making Beca lose her balance and turn around, glaring. 

“Sorry,” the redhead says. She tugs at the sleeve of Beca’s shirt, twisting it around her finger. “Just didn’t want to look at your back. This is…a better view.”   
  
 _I’m just a sucker_  
 _For cold hearted lover_  
 _You make me suffer_  
 _You make me suffer_  
 _Don’t keep me waiting_  
 _You should come over_  
 _Don’t make me suffer_  
 _Don’t make me suffer_

“Not so comfortable,” Beca grumbles, though she decides to use Chloe’s legs now as a front pillow and presses against them. Her hands are skitting across Chloe’s hip bones. 

“For you maybe,” Chloe answers, hoping the brunette doesn’t notice how her eyes flitter close for a second. She thinks that not only can she feel the buzzing, but now she can  _hear_ it. Sighing between the two of them. 

“You’re killin’ me, Beale,” Beca says under her breath, and Chloe lets out a breathy chuckle. 

“Yeah,” she swallows, “You’re telling me.” 

 


	33. All Too Well

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Song prompt thing. All too well by Taylor swift from Chloe's pov — sent by anonymous

_I walked through the door with you, the air was cold,_  
But something ‘bout it felt like home somehow.  
And I left my scarf there at your sister’s house,  
And you’ve still got it in your drawer even now.  
  
The graduation gown doesn’t do much to keep her warm, because even though it’s almost summer, the spring breeze is still enough to make Chloe shiver. Beca’s wearing her high heels, grinning at her from where she’s standing at the table with her parents, and she thinks about all the sweaters the other girl has stolen throughout their four years together. She wonders if Beca’s already packed them all in the moving boxes, and whether she even wants to ask or not.

  
  
 _Oh, your sweet disposition and my wide-eyed gaze._  
We’re singing in the car, getting lost Upstate.  
Autumn leaves falling down like pieces into place,  
And I can picture it after all these days.  
  
And then the music is cued up, from some corner where Fat Amy is taking over Beca’s position as DJ, and Beca’s eyes light up, because if they were in the car right now, this is the song that would be blasting over the speakers. She wiggles her hips at Chloe, and Chloe chuckles just barely to show Beca that she sees her. 

When they drove from her summer home to the Bellas’ new house, with Beca’s feet propped up against the dashboard, they screamed to this song and watched the first leaves of fall slip from their branches. Then, just like now, Chloe remembered feeling colder than she should. 

  
 _And I know it’s long gone,_  
And that magic’s not here no more,  
And I might be okay,  
But I’m not fine at all.  
  
They’ve been through a lot of hugging today, waking up to bodies bouncing around the living room where they all happened to fall asleep the night before. There’s giggling, and there’s squealing, and there’s tears, but Chloe sees the photographic energy in it all. She thinks that everyone has that touch of fear, but none of them are shaking like she is, sneaking away to the bathroom to try to catch her breath. 

When Beca found her the first time, after their group photo, racing out of the bathroom with smeared mascara, she asked if Chloe was doing alright. And Chloe didn’t lie, because she wouldn’t lie, so she said, “Yeah, I’m totally okay”.  
  
 _‘Cause there we are again on that little town street._  
You almost ran the red 'cause you were looking over at me.  
Wind in my hair, I was there, I remember it all too well.  
  
The car was too filled to get to the ceremony all together, so, for what was going to be the last time, Beca and Chloe opted to take their own car, with Beca at the wheel and Chloe positioned cross-legged in the passenger seat. 

Beca always forgot about the stop sign on the corner of East Fifth and Sugar Crane, and when she slammed on the brake, cursing, Chloe shot forward, laughing. 

She thinks now about how that felt like every other time they were together in that crammed, crap-heap of a car, only inherently different, stale with the feeling that they needed to appreciate every second because a stopwatch was now set and they couldn’t go back.   
  
 _Photo album on the counter, your cheeks were turning red.  
You used to be a little kid with glasses in a twin sized bed  
And your mother’s telling stories about you on a tee ball team  
You taught me 'bout your past, thinking your future was me._  
  
When she waves hello to Beca’s mother, the woman tells her to come closer, and they start reminiscing about the photo Mrs. Mitchell brought strictly for the purpose of showing Chloe, who loves baby photos. Beca’s wearing an over-sized t-shirt with hand-prints scattered on it, her hair thrown up into pigtails that she couldn’t be caught dead sporting now, and she’s missing three teeth. Two, her mother says, from when she hit  _herself_ with the whiffle bat during tee ball practice. 

Chloe laughs, and Beca swings a hand around her waist, squeezing her, indicating for a fraction of a moment that she might see exactly what Chloe’s been trying to hide all day. Then, her arm is gone, and her face is stuffed in a glass of punch, and Chloe thinks she should get used to this absence of her warmth, and she should get used to it soon.   
  
 _And I know it’s long gone_  
And there was nothing else I could do  
And I forget about you long enough  
To forget why I needed to…  
  
“I’m proud of you,” Beca says in Chloe’s ear while her mom rambles about one of her students. Chloe looks down, seeing the twist of Beca’s lips and the way she’s staring at her with admiration, and she wants to tell this girl that gaining her pride isn’t worth it. 

That she’d fail again and again and again, because this thing called the “real world” is already getting bad, and it hasn’t even really started yet.   
  
 _'Cause there we are again in the middle of the night._  
We’re dancing around the kitchen in the refrigerator light  
Down the stairs, I was there, I remember it all too well, yeah.  
  
“Now, when’re you coming to visit again?” Beca’s mother asks, catching the glances that the two girls pass between each other. Chloe falters, unsure even of what she’s doing with the next hour. She says exactly that, in the perfect self-deprecating fashion that earns a chuckle from both the Mitchell women she’s talking to. 

But then she’s assaulted with the images of the last time she followed Beca home, last Christmas break, where between baking cookies at three am on Christmas Eve, they slow danced to the terrible holiday rock-a-billy that was pouring from the radio. It started with Chloe weaving her arms around Beca’s waist while she stood in front of the fridge looking for another stick of butter, one streak of flour running across her cheek. So the light was all they had to guide their steps, and Chloe used her practice in ballroom to lead, eventually letting Beca stand on her feet to learn the steps.   
  
 _Well, maybe we got lost in translation, maybe I asked for too much,_  
But maybe this thing was a masterpiece 'til you tore it all up.  
Running scared, I was there, I remember it all too well.  
  
And then the party’s over, and then the week ends, and then they’re standing there waving at a moving van as it backs out of the driveway. And then, she wakes up to find the house empty except for her and her things.

There is a note on the front door, with Beca’s handwriting sparsely covering it.  _Didn’t want to wake you_ , it says,  _Headed out. I’ll call you soon. Visit anytime._

 __  
Hey, you call me up again just to break me like a promise.  
So casually cruel in the name of being honest.  
I’m a crumpled up piece of paper lying here  
'Cause I remember it all, all, all… too well.  
  
She doesn’t have the heart to leave on time, staying a day past what they agreed on in the rental agreement, using the extra twenty-four hours to trace the places where Bella photos used to line the walls. When her phone rings, she races towards it, and the way her heart beats is a casual reminder that she’s still capable of living. 

“Beca?” she says without looking at the caller ID. 

“Yeah,” the other girl breathes, and Chloe starts crying. As if even Beca’s breath could be a cue for that. “Listen,” she starts, “I’m sorry I left without saying goodbye.” 

“It’s–”

“It was easier,” Beca jumps in. 

“Than what?” 

“Than facing you,” Beca admits, “And forcing myself to leave anyway.” 

 _Time won’t fly, it’s like I’m paralyzed by it  
I’d like to be my old self again, but I’m still trying to find it  
After plaid shirt days and nights when you made me your own  
Now you mail back my things and I walk home alone_  
  
That box that Chloe wasn’t sure if Beca had gets mailed back to her in the weeks following her move-out. She’s tucked in the corners of her childhood bedroom, looking online for a job interview outfit fit for a teacher when her mother knocks on the door and hands her the package. She thinks that hardly enough time has passed for this to be necessary, and she believes this is proven by the way the box smells - still like Beca, as if no time went by at all between the sending and receiving.   
  
 _But you keep my old scarf from that very first week_  
'Cause it reminds you of innocence and it smells like me  
You can’t get rid of it 'cause you remember it all too well, yeah  
  
The only thing not in there is the cup that Chloe cherished throughout the years that they’d known each other. She noticed it was missing when she finished up packing, and she assumed that Beca took it for herself. Now, tearing through the package to find it, she realizes that Beca’s kept it, and she can only find solace in the fact that Beca is using it. In the fact that Beca needs her comfort too. 

There has been missed phonecalls and curt text messages, but Beca still needs to hold onto something too, and Chloe clutches the plaid shirt that was Beca’s favorite, smelling her and thinking about that audition, and the way the other girl smiled like it was the start of their entire lives. Because it was. 

  
 _'Cause there we are again, when I loved you so_  
Back before you lost the one real thing you’ve ever known  
It was rare, I was there, I remember it all too well  
  
Her mother’s still standing in the doorway, watching Chloe rummage through the things with a mix of eagerness, anger, and sadness, only bothering to clear her throat when she sees Chloe’s eyes drift off to nowhere in particular. 

“New mailman,” her mother says, snapping her attention back to Chloe and pulling a smirk from the side of her face. “Or, mail woman. Though she’s probably as small as the dogs that are chasing after her.” 

  
 _Wind in my hair, you were there, you remember it all_  
Down the stairs, you were there, you remember it all  
It was rare, I was there, I remember it all too well

Chloe would ask for clarification. She would glare at her mother or pull her eyebrows up and say, “Okay, cool?”, two tactics she learned from Beca to shoo someone out of her room. Only she knows that face, because it was the same one her mom gave when they spent their first night in the summer house, having dinner with her parents and feeling her mother’s gaze glaze over Beca in a knowing way. It’s the same face she had when it was Spring Break, and she asked about Beca right on the tail end of asking about her love life. It is knowing, and it is gleeful, and it is not unlike exactly how Chloe looks when she’s watching the first half of  _The Notebook_. 

So Chloe untangles her legs, ignoring the way they tingle and resist, as she shoves her mother out of the doorway and runs down the steps, nearly tripping on the way down. 

Beca sits on the couch, her hands perched on her knees, and she looks up at Chloe like she’s looking at her prom date descend the stairs. Chloe remembers this look. Can call it back from the recesses of her mind, and realizes that it’s been what’s feeding her for so many years. She tackles Beca on the couch, two arms wrapping around Beca’s neck and pulling her close while simultaneously knocking her down. 

“I thought you wouldn’t remember me,” Beca jokes, holding on just as tightly. Chloe hears the squeak that Beca lets out at her force, and she laughs - a sound which brings her back to that night in the kitchen or squished into the car. 

“Oh no,” Chloe answers, refusing to let go. “I remember all too well.” 


	34. The Run and Go

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> @coolerthanyoustuff prompted:  
> Songfic to The Run and Go By Twenty One Pilots, where Beca is struggling with trusting Chloe and is thinking about calling Chloe in the middle of the night, but Chloe is already at her door.

_I can’t take them on my own, my own_  
Oh, I’m not the one you know, you know  
I have killed a man and all I know  
Is I am on the run and go.  
  
Beca is unafraid of the nighttime. Yet, there are moments when the hours drip by just slow enough for the walls that she is staring at to turn black, and suddenly every shadow of the dark outside becomes another monster for her to fight away. They accompany the memory of the day, showing her all the times she did wrong, and letting all the things she still needs to do lurk over her like ghosts, waiting to pounce. 

It is in these moments that she can hear voices that tell her not to call. There’s an itch to her fingers, because she knows that by pressing one button, the dark can be pushed out by the brightness of Chloe’s laugh and the promise of breakfast tomorrow. But without a night-light, that itch is covered in the burning whispers that demand she keep her hands to herself. 

  
 _Don’t wanna call you in the nighttime_  
Don’t wanna give you all my pieces  
Don’t wanna hand you all my trouble  
Don’t wanna give you all my demons  
You’ll have to watch me struggle  
From several rooms away  
But tonight I’ll need you to stay.  
  
Only, it’s four in the morning, and Chloe’s words are still ringing in her head. The times she called her beautiful, carried on eyes that were more sincere than Beca had ever seen, or the times she told her she loved her. Or even the smaller moments, when Chloe squeaked and giggled, calling Beca a “nerd” or some acapella variation because they were arguing over what to order at McDonalds. 

It’s four in the morning, and despite the state she knows she’s in, she wants to call, because she knows that the only person who can help it all go away is Chloe. Blues and reds and greens to fight away the harsh blackness of it all, and Beca thinks that it might be worth it to bring her closer, if just for one night. 

 _I am up against the wall, the wall_  
For I hear them coming down the hall  
I have killed a man and all I know  
Is I am on the run and go.  
  
Then, the nightmares get clearer and come quicker, so that when Beca closes her eyes, she can feel her stomach drop out from underneath her, and no matter how hard she clutches at her pillowcase, all she sees to help are the words on her phone that spell out “Chloe Beale”. 

 _Don’t wanna call you in the nighttime_  
Don’t wanna give you all my pieces  
Don’t wanna hand you all my trouble  
Don’t wanna give you all my demons  
You’ll have to watch me struggle  
From several rooms away  
But tonight I’ll need you to stay.  
  
She’s just about desperate enough to reach out, her hands clammy. 

She knows that there will be exposition, though, and that the next day Chloe will see her as more naked than she did before. As a general rule, she tries to keep people from seeing her at all like that, and this would ruin any touch of protection she set up around herself to keep safe. 

 _Don’t wanna call you in the nighttime_  
Don’t wanna give you all my pieces  
Don’t wanna hand you all my trouble  
Don’t wanna give you all my demons  
You’ll have to watch me struggle  
From several rooms away  
But tonight I’ll need you to stay.  
  
Her hand is on the door knob before she realizes she’s awake, her t-shirt swimming over her upper thighs. The room is howling under the wind outside, and when she turns the doorknob, it squeaks. 

Chloe is surprised when the door opens, her eyes wide with fear and what will be explanations if Beca doesn’t speak soon. 

“I couldn’t sleep,” Beca says, as if she broke down and asked Chloe to be here in the first place. The other girl puts her head on the doorway, grinning. 

“Neither could I,” she said. Her hands make their way to Beca’s hips, and the warmth there is enough to make Beca melt. 

Only, it’s less like melting and more like crumbling, breaking down so that Beca isn’t being pushed back into the room but is instead being held by Chloe as she lets out a shaky breath. 

“I didn’t ask you to come,” she says, and Chloe’s about to protest, but she continues. “But is it okay if I ask you to stay?” 

And it’s enough, they both think. It’s a break down of walls while not leaving Beca completely naked. It’s a smile and a nod by Chloe and a backing up into the room, so that they can face each other under the moonlight, where nothing seems quite as sinister as it had moments ago. 

It’s enough, because it puts Chloe into bed next to Beca, and it keeps her there. It’s enough because it’s right where Beca needs her. 

“You’ve been trying to sleep for a while, huh?” Chloe asked, pushing a hair behind Beca’s ear. The brunette nods, and Chloe’s hand lingers. “You know, Becs, it would be a hell of a lot easier next time if you just ask.” 


	35. Can't Help Falling in Love With You

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> First of all, I hope you're having a wonderful Christmas Eve! Hope you're finding happiness in the midst of these otherwise stressful times. I was wondering if you could write a mini-fic based on the song, "Can't Help Falling in Love With You"? It was originally an Elvis song, but I really adore Haley Reinhart's cover. And watch the Extra Gum ad that the song was used for, if you haven't already (when you get the time. <3) Again, happy holidays. I'm a huge fan. <3 — sent by anonymous

_Wise men say  
Only fools rush in_    
 _But I can’t help falling in love with you_

She begins to chew gum after Regionals her junior year, because she’s unused to getting insulted so blatantly, and because for weeks after that incident, all she can hear is the sharpness in her captain’s voice. 

So when they’re perched at the edge of Hood Night and Beca nudges her with her elbow, handing her a stick of gum, Chloe takes it willingly. Gratefully, even, because it’s her favorite brand and her favorite flavor, and because she thinks she notices a slight tremor in Beca’s hand when their fingers brush slightly.

It’s silly, really, how easily it all begins. With a stick of gum, or a crumbled up flier, or a curtain pushed back and a series of blushes and flushes. 

It’s silly, really, how when she gets back to her room after Hood Night, she finds the gum wrapper and slips it into the space between her phone and her case. 

And that night, when she falls asleep, she thinks she can hear Beca’s voice somewhere mixed into the thoughts about tomorrow, making her excited and awake and warm and sleepy at all once. 

It’s silly, really. 

_Shall I stay_  
 _Would it be a sin_  
 _If I can’t help falling in love with you_  
  
But it’s worth it, she thinks when she looks back at her Russian Lit exam, the red letter spiking out in some strange, impossible 3D. 

“Didn’t do so hot?” Beca asks from behind her, nudging her when she gets close enough and holding out another piece of gum. 

“If F stands for frozen, then, yeah,” Chloe said under her breath, taking the piece and folding it into fours like she always does. 

It’s worth it, she thinks, because Beca’s hand is on her waist, her head on her shoulder, and she sighs when she sees the exam. “Come on,” Beca says with a sudden fervor, “We’re going out.” 

“It’s a Tuesday night, and you hate parties,” Chloe argues, but Beca’s hands are already tugging at Chloe’s. 

“And you need a distraction,” Beca says, “So let’s _go_. Chop chop.” 

So it’s fine, really, when the final grades come back before graduation and she’s called into the Dean’s office to return her cap and gown. 

She’ll stay. And it will be fine. 

_Like a river flows_   
_Surely to the sea_   
_Darling so it goes_   
_Some things are meant to be_

It takes two years for Beca to realize that Chloe’s self-conscious about her breath, and when she does, she buys a jumbo pack of gum to hand it jokingly off to Chloe between movies during a particularly painful marathon. “I’m not sending a message or anything,” Beca says quickly, “Just thought it might make you feel a bit better.” 

Only, the gum package goes relatively untouched, because over the course of their three years, Beca’s always the one offering the gum to Chloe - for each performance and after every party, backstage or on the walk back home - and it’s weird, Chloe knows, but she saves all of the wrappers in her jacket pocket or squished into her phone case so that when she’s stuck waiting at a restaurant alone or particularly bored in class, she can doodle on them. 

Beca notices, of course she notices, because Chloe sticks a few up on the bulletin board beside her bed or on the only clear space on her desk. So when _real_ graduation rolls around, she hands a stick of gum to Chloe, the wrapping just slightly messed up, and on the inside is a drawing of a cap, complete with a tassel, and the words, “I’m so proud of you” written on it. 

_Take my hand,_   
_Take my whole life too_   
_For I can’t help falling in love with you_

It gives Chloe an idea, or, rather, it gives Chloe the courage to embrace a certain idea, though it takes months of being back home with her parents before she realizes the necessity of this particular path of action. 

Because Skype doesn’t do the trick. And texting is hard when Beca isn’t the most eloquent with words. 

Because when she has gum, now, she’s certain to get Beca’s brand, not because she prefers it, but because it _smells_ like her, and that’s how she knows - not that she hasn’t really _known_ all this time. 

She mails it in an envelope, which makes Beca roll her eyes when they’re skyping and Chloe tells her to check the mailbox. “This is an antiquated and romanticized form of communication, you know,” Beca says when she comes back with the envelope, complete with doodles and drawings all over it. Chloe shrugs, humming to herself before telling Beca, in no uncertain terms, to just “open the goshdarned thing”. 

The only thing in it is a gum wrapper, silver and folded up into a tiny square. Beca rolls her eyes again, but there’s curiosity behind it, and when she unfurls the edges, she reads the drawing. 

It’s stick figures, sure, but Chloe went through the work of having a red pen to emphasize the hair. Her stick-self is holding a moving box - one that says Bhloe in clear terms - and there’s a question mark next to it. 

“You serious?” Beca asks after she’s run her thumb over the folds a few times. 

“I need a change of pace,” Chloe says, fighting every urge in her that wants to say she needs _her_. Beca. That _she_ is her change. 

_For I can’t help falling in love with you_   
_For I can’t help falling in love with you_

And then, after a year of gum wrappers and movie marathons, she does it again. This time, her hand is the one shaking, and she can feel the shiver that passes when Beca’s fingers brush hers to get the piece. The foil folds under Beca’s grasp, though, and she looks up at Chloe with an eyebrow raised. 

This wrapper is older than the others - more faded, more folded, and Chloe already misses the place it inhabited for five years between her phone and her case. By now, it smells more like her than like Beca, though, so she can sacrifice. 

Beca opens it, reading the inside with squinted eyes because Chloe just had too much to say for a damned gum wrapper to fit, and her hand-writing never was that clean when it was void of the looping scrawl that took up half a page. 

She watches the way Beca’s eyes trail over the words. The way her jaw drops, the way her cheeks get red, the way there are tears - _maybe_ \- in the corner of it all. Chloe watches, and she does it all over again - all the wrappers, and the smiles and giggles and nudges…she falls, over and over again in that fleeting instant, erasing any anxiety about the moment and filling it, instead, with hope. 

“So?” Chloe says finally when Beca’s done reading. 

“My breath smells horrible,” Beca says, “And I don’t have a fucking piece of gum now. I just have…like, a thesis on all of Chloe Beale’s deepest feelings.” 

“Shut up,” Chloe grumbles, nudging Beca lightly. Because there’s a certain tone Beca is using that is clearly attempting to cover something up, at least for the time being, and because when she walks closer to the brunette, the other girl’s breath catches in anticipation. 

“Me too,” Beca says as an afterthought, Chloe’s breath ghosting over her lips. “For the record. All of it. What you said. Me too.” 

“I know,” Chloe answers with more confidence that she knew she had. “I know.” 

 


	36. Awake

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> someone who shall remain anonymous requested a fic based on John Groban’s song, “Awake”

_A beautiful and blinding morning_  
The world outside begins to breathe  
See clouds arriving without warning  
I need you here to shelter me

“Just one more night.” 

It’s an innocent request. Simple enough, really. Chloe just can’t fully fathom the idea yet, and she thinks that maybe if she gets a few more hours to pretend then her mind can come around to comprehending the moving truck that will pull into the driveway tomorrow. 

She says it like a prayer. Like maybe Beca won’t agree to these terms and conditions. But Beca looks up in the silent space after she asks, and there’s something in her eyes too - a sort of pitying nostalgia - so she smiles bittersweetly and nods, pulling back the comforter on Chloe’s bed without saying a word. 

  
 _And I know that only time will tell us how_  
To carry on without each other  
  
The date had been looming over them from the moment Beca stepped onto campus. Chloe, year after year, told herself that this was going to be easy once it happened, because she would be used to it. 

She would know, or at least she would prepare, for the quiet that comes from a morning alone after so many shared. 

 _So keep me awake to memorize you_  
Give me more time to feel this way  
We can’t stay like this forever  
But I can have you next to me today  
  
She is wrong, though. Deeply and painfully wrong, and as she lays next to Beca, noses almost touching, she realizes just how incorrect that idea is. 

They don’t talk. They both think that if they keep the space of time between them empty, then it will move slower, unfueled by squealing conversation and hyper giggles. 

They both think that it’s probably not working.  

 _If I could make these moments endless_  
If I could stop the winds of change  
If we just keep our eyes wide open  
Then everything would stay the same  
  
When Beca starts to drift asleep, Chloe watches her eyelids get heavy. She breathes out a puff of air, shaking her head slightly, and Chloe smiles, because it’s clear now that Beca is trying to stay awake too. Trying, like Chloe, to memorize everything that, over the four years together, they might’ve missed. 

_And I know that only time will tell me how  
We’ll carry on without each other_

If they spend hours taking this mental picture, then maybe it won’t fray at the edges, lose its scent, forget its warmth. If they spend hours just like this, maybe the ‘this’ they’re trying to preserve will stay safe. Sound. 

 _So keep me awake for every moment_  
Give us more time to be this way  
We can’t stay like this forever  
But I can have you next to me today  
  
“You should sleep,” Chloe hears herself saying, breaking the static between them to brush back a strand of Beca’s hair. The brunette’s eyes close immediately at Chloe’s touch. Sitting there with a sleepy frown on her face, Beca sighs. 

“I dun wan to,” she grumbles, and Chloe chuckles sweetly. 

“I know,” she says. It is her turn to breathe, and the sigh she lets out almost weighs them down more. “I know.” 

 _We’ll let tomorrow wait, you’re here, right now, with me_  
All my fears just fall away, when you are all I see  
  
We can’t stay like this forever  
But I have you here today  
  
Eventually, they fall asleep, inches closer than when they started, hands wrapped around each other’s waists. There are words resting on their lips that they never hoped to have the opportunity to say, and there are images behind their eyelids that they never wanted to have to share. 

Instead of all of that, they just fight to keep their eyes open and fail, and Chloe thinks before she slips into sleep that it’s too soon. It’s all too soon. 

  
 _And I will remember_  
Oh I will remember  
Remember all the love we shared today

Her subconscious can bring Beca back later, on the plane back home or before her first job interview. In fact, it can bring her back right now, as Chloe’s breaths slow down to a sleeping rate. 

Her memory can recall, her mind can retell, and she thinks it’s a little selfish that they’re already starting now. 

Because now she has Beca in her arms, in front of her face, and her subconscious is still forcing itself on her, and if she weren’t so tired, she would be angry. 

Instead, she hums contently and slips into that subconscious, where Beca is permanent instead of temporary. At least here, at least now, the reminder that they’re both leaving can be muted by the fact that they’re both still here. 


	37. Leave Your Lover

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I don't know if you've done this prompt, but could you do bechloe to "leave your lover" by sam smith? — sent by anonymous

_don’t have much to give, but I don’t care for gold_  
What use is money, when you need someone to hold?  
Don’t have direction, I’m just rolling down this road  
Waiting for you to bring me in from out the cold  
  
It happened so slowly that Chloe didn’t realize it. She thinks that this might be good, because maybe no one else realized it either. But the second time she fails Russian lit, she knows that she’s started centered her life around her. The truth is, there was a certain inevitability to it all - no one was meant to live their life for nothing, so when any something comes by, that’s what you aim it towards. 

 _You’ll never know the endless nights, the rhyming of the rain,_  
Or how it feels to fall behind and watch you call his name  
  
She becomes good at brushing it off. She’s trained herself to be able to smile sweetly when he comes over for Bella movie night, and even has the power to keep them together when Beca says time and time again that she’s just not sure about it all. 

Only, the thing about brushing things off is that then, things scatter. Like dust, they form little clouds around Chloe’s head so that she’s stuck, stuffed, hazy, and she knows it prevents her from being all that she can be to Beca. She knows that it keeps her from being the friend that she should be. That she could be. 

 _Pack up and leave everything,_  
Don’t you see what I can bring  
Can’t keep this beating heart at bay  
Set my midnight sorrow free,  
I will give you all of me  
Just leave your lover, leave him for me.  
Leave your lover, leave him for me.  
  
So, to distract her from the guilt, she imagines a situation wherein she could tell Beca. They are huddled together on the side of the couch in the living room, and she looks up until Beca asks her what’s on her mind. Or, they are sitting on the beach, because Beca chose her summer vacation over Jesse’s, and Chloe is watching the way Beca hides under the umbrella, words drying out her lips. 

She imagines every single situation, and concocts just the right words every time. She thinks if she makes a good actress, then she must make a good writer too, because the words are always there, even if the power to say them isn’t. 

 _We sit in bars and raise our drinks to growing old_  
Oh, I’m in love with you and you will never know,  
But if I can’t have you I want this life alone  
Spare you the rising storms and let the rivers flow  
  
Beca starts to suspect, or, at least, be concerned, when she nudges Chloe at the bar, pushing her towards the bartender who’s been giving her those eyes all night. Chloe stays seated, shaking her head politely. “Not now,” she says, “I’m not looking for that right now.” 

 _You’ll never know the endless nights, the rhyming of the rain  
Or how it feels to fall behind and watch you call his name_  
  
Beca asks when, what. If not _that_ and _now_. And Chloe just shrugs. 

Brush it off and sit in the wake of the dust cloud you stirred up, she thinks. Brush it off and breathe it in. 

“What about you,” she asks, her voice rising in that barely noticeable way that it always does when she asks about him. “How’s it going with you two?” 

 _Pack up and leave everything,_  
Don’t you see what I can bring  
Can’t keep this beating heart at bay  
Set my midnight sorrow free,  
I will give you all of me  
Just leave your lover, leave him for me  
Leave your lover, leave him for me.  
Leave your lover, leave him for me.

And when Beca sighs in a familiar way, shaking her head, Chloe’s heart actually stops for a fraction of a second. It’s a pang, not a relief. “What?” she asks, her hand flying to the crook of Beca’s elbow before she realizes how much the touch will sting. 

“That’s not…” Beca starts, and then she takes a sip of her drink. “We’re not….a thing…anymore.” 

And the pang becomes something like a bone resetting - it hurts before Chloe feels it growing into something so much stronger than it had only seconds before. She takes a deep breath, nods. 

“That’s…” she says, and suddenly all of the words she’d written for this moment dried up and cracked along with her breath. “There are other things,” she doesn’t move her hand from Beca’s elbow, “Other things that could be things. Just…so you know.” 


	38. Gorgeous

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Could you do a Bechloe fic based on X Ambassadors's song 'Gorgeous' (such a good song, if you haven't heard it) and I could totally see Beca listening/singing to it while thinking about Chloe regardless if they were together or not :) — sent by anonymous

_I might be better off without you_  
There’s too many people all around you  
All these vultures that surround you  
They don’t know a thing about you  
  
Beca watches Chloe throughout the course of their four years together. She watches her through movie nights, and she watches her put makeup on in the hour before their performance. She watches, and she thinks the she is just one spectator in a stadium audience of people who are enamored with everything that she does. 

The thing is, though, that those other people don’t get to see the way Chloe’s dimples pop out when the music swells in the last five minutes of a romantic comedy. They don’t see how she purses her lips when she’s brushing bronzer onto her cheeks. 

They don’t know the backstage quite like Beca does. 

They watch her, sure, but they don’t see.  

 _You’re so gorgeous_  
Cause you make me feel gorgeous  
Oh, so gorgeous  
Cause you make me feel gorgeous  
  
She starts to sing the song halfway through sophomore year, three nights after Chloe looked at her in the center of a crowded acapella party and told her she looked “good” that night. 

There was a twist to her stare that made Beca nervous, almost, and there was a hint behind her smile that made Beca feel warm. So, she started singing, in the silence of her shower or while she perused social media. Mindlessly and without realizing it. 

  
 _Nobody understands you_  
You ain’t nothing they can handle  
Every man you put your hands on  
You make him feel so god damn handsome  
  
And when she watches, she sometimes sees Chloe with someone else. Dancing at a parties with her hands at his waist or curled up on a blanket in the middle of the quad, Chloe can jump around with another lanky guy, a beard and a set of glasses or a sweater that she’ll later steal. 

Beca thinks that she couldn’t imagine what it would feel like to have Chloe watch _her_ like that. She thinks that she couldn’t imagine just how big she would feel under a gaze like that - how strong, how bright.

  
 _I feel, ooh, so pretty whenever you’re around_  
I feel, ooh, so pretty  
Feel ten feet off the ground  
  
You’re so gorgeous  
Cause you make me feel gorgeous  
Oh, so gorgeous  
Cause you make me feel gorgeous  
  
Because it doesn’t take much. The stares linger, sometimes accompanied by a suggestion that makes Beca blush, and that’s all she needs to feel all over again like she should re-evaluate how she looks at herself in the mirror. If someone like Chloe can see her with that kind of fervent belief in her beauty, well, then, she couldn’t be wrong. 

The song becomes her personal anthem throughout junior year, so much so that the other girls make fun of her for it when they catch her singing it in the kitchen. 

“Who’re you even singing about, Smalls?” they ask, and it’s only then that Beca begins to realize what the answer to that question really is. 

  
 _We are young, we are free_  
Like renegades, like James Dean  
Beat the drum, sing off-key  
You set me free, you set me free  
  
It takes her senior year for Chloe to stop with the guys, instead harnessing all her power to look at Beca in just the right way. So she takes her hand at a party, and they slip out of the crowd to the rooftop of whatever frat house they’ve been trapped in. 

They’re drunk. They’re tired. And they start to sing the song that Beca’s been singing for three and a half years, the one that hurts her now to hear, so off-key that three people in the backyard below hold up their middle fingers and ask them to stop. 

  
 _Cause you’re so gorgeous_  
Cause you make me feel gorgeous  
Oh, so gorgeous  
Cause you make me feel gorgeous  
You’re so gorgeous  
Cause you make me feel gorgeous  
So gorgeous  
Cause you make me feel gorgeous  
You’re so gorgeous  
Cause you make me feel gorgeous  
Oh, so gorgeous  
Cause you make me feel gorgeous

They’re laughing by the time they finish the song, only Beca’s not blinking or looking away from whatever look Chloe is fixing on her. She blushes, though, and bites her lip, sobered up almost immediately. 

She says the last few lines in the right melody, with the right notes, so low that only Chloe can hear her. 

And the smile Chloe gives back - the one that, somehow, communicates a sense of basic understanding - is the exact face that Beca had been watching, waiting, for. 

It is gorgeous. And it makes her feel gorgeous. Beca traces it with the pad of her thumb. 

“Stunning,” she says, “You and me.” 

“Gorgeous,” Chloe says, biting her lip and giggling before taking Beca’s hand - the one tracing her mouth - and using it to pull Beca closer. “You and me.” 

**Author's Note:**

> More minifics exist on my tumblah (flabbergasties), AND I take prompts, so...booyah. Did I just say booyah? You bet your ass I did.


End file.
